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Mark Neuman
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IRELAND;
ITS EVILS, AND THEIR REMEDIES
A REFUTATION
ERRORS OF THE EMIGRATION COMMITTEE
AND OTHERS,
TOUCHING THAT COUNTRY.
TO WHICH IS PREFIXED,
A SYNOPSIS OF AN ORIGINAL TREATISE,
ABOUT TO BE PUBLISHED,
ON
THE LAW OF POPULATION;
DEVELOPING THE REAL PRINCIPLE ON WHICH IT IS UNIVERSALLY REGULATED.
MICHAEL THOMAS SADLER.
' DWELL IN THE LAND, AND VERILY THOU SHALT BK FED,'
LONDON :
JOHN xMURRAY, ALBEMARLR SPREET.
MDCXXXXVIU.
LONDON:
Printed by W. Ci.owis,
Stamford-street.
CONTENTS.
Section
I. 1. Ireland: the condition of its population apparently
difficult to reconcile with the theory advanced in the
Introduction to this work, and still less with the one
opposed throug^hout, page 1.
2. Prevailing misconceptions as to its evils and their
remedies, 1.
3. Table of the population at different periods during the
last century and a half, 4.
II. Ireland not overpeopled in reference
1. To its potential produce, 6.
2. To its actual produce, 7.
III. The alleged proofs of Ireland's being at present over-
peopled refuted, by an appeal to its past history ;
namely, those founded on the
1. General wretchedness, 10.
2. Want of employment, 15,
3. Frequent scarcities, 18.
4. Epidemics, 22.
5. These evils formerly attributed to want of inhabitants, 25.
IV. The produce of Ireland has increased faster than its popu-
lation.
1. The general quality of its food not deteriorated, 28.
2. Its surplus corn greatly increased, 29.
3. Surplus cattle, 31.
4. Improvement in other respects, 36.
V. Causes that have retarded the further improvement of
Ireland.
1. Absenteeship, 38.
a 2
( ONTKNTS.
Section
2. TIjc origin and prevalence of this j^reat national evil
explained, 39.
3. Its consequences. The poverty and wretchedness it
occasions, 42.
4. The injuries it inflicts on society, 46.
5. The cruelties it occasions. Underletting-. Exorbitant
rents, clearing's, &c., 47.
6. Its political effect, 50.
7. Its conduct in the periods of general distress which it
occasions, 50.
8. Its total abandonment of all social and public duties, 56.
9. Exceptions, 58.
VI. 1. The modern justification of absenteeship considered in
reference to Ireland, 59.
2. Exemplified as it respects Britain, 63.
3. Its injurious effect on British agriculture, 64.
4. Its effects, in abstracting the capital of Ireland, 65.
VII. The expedients now proposed in behalf of Ireland con-
sidered ; and, first. Emigration.
1. Its inefficiency proved by an appeal to the past experi-
ence of Ireland, 69.
2. The expedient of barbarous times, 72.
3. Its impolicy shewn in reference to the description of
persons it is proposed to deport, 76.
4. Its erroneous and degrading estimate of the worth of
human beings, 77.
5. Men valuable in all communities whatsoever, even as
slaves, 79.
6. Far more valuable as free labourers, 83.
7. Appeal to every class in proof of the value of human
beings, 85.
8. The proposal of sending British subjects away, impo-
litic as to its effects . 88.
9. Cruel in its consequences, however regulated, 90.
( ON iKN rs.
Section
VIII. Second expedient, namely, " clearing :" I. c. depopulating-
estates, or enlarging farms,
1. The proposition explained, 92.
2. Its cruelty, especially in reference to Ireland, 93.
3. Its moral and political effects in past times, 96.
4. The cause of constant outrages and insurrections in
Ireland, 99.
5. Its selfishness, 103.
6. Its impolicy; as detrimental to the interests of the
landlord, the occupier, and the public, 105.
7. Superiority of minute cultivation proved. The practice
of the ancients appealed to, 107.
8. Existing demonstrations. Italy, 116.
9. The Netherlands. The importance of consulting the
practice of agriculture there, 115.
10. Size of farms there limited, and almost universally
small, 119.
11. The effects of their system in regard to all the interests
immediately concerned, as well as the public at
large, 123.
12. Their policy compared with that of the United King-
dom, 129.
13. Gross misstatements as to the average size of farms in
Ireland. Large farms prevail there, 130.
14. Prosperity of the small farmers in Ireland, when pro-
perly treated, 134.
15. Great cruelty of" clearing" them, 135.
16. Exemplified, 138.
17. The proposition highly injurious to England and its
agriculture, 143.
IX. Third expedient, that the Irish should be induced to adopt a
better style of living.
1. Impossible on account of absenteeship, 146.
2. Means the restraining of matrimony, 149.
3. The demoralizing conse(piences of this, were it possible
to cHect it, 150.
section
CONTENTS.
4. Would be wholly inefficacious as a measure of relief,
152.
X. Fourth expedient. Ecclesiastical confiscation.
1. Delusive as a proposition of relief to the lower classes,
152.
2. Would injure them by increasing- absenteeship, 157.
3. That the Clergy are absentees, disproved, 157.
4. Benefits of their residence, 158.
5. Illustrated, 160.
6. A final commutation of tithes proposed, 162.
7. And a better administration of ecclesiastical property,
165.
XI. Propositions in behalf of Ireland.
1. Absenteeship to be discouraged, 166.
2. So as least to interfere with the rights of property, 167.
3. Precedents for legislative interference, 168.
XII. A power to be conferred on absentees of altering the entails
of their Irish estates, proposed.
1. As a means of lessening absenteeship, 169.
2. The proposal previously sanctioned, 170.
3. Objections anticipated and answered, ib.
4. Individual and national advantages of such a law, 171.
XIII. The establishment of a reformed system of Poor Laws,
proposed.
1. The system of a national provision for poverty and dis-
tress, on the basis of the poor laws of England,
asserted and defended, 112.
2. The defence not extended to its malversations and
abuses, 173.
3. Tnefficacy and impracticability of other plans of general
relief, 177.
4. Poor laws beneficial to the general interests of the com-
munity, 181.
5. The unfairness of their abrogation considered and ex-
emplified, 183.
6. The principle of a national provision further defended,
and shewn to be founded on natural right and
justice, 185.
7. On relij^ion. Poor laws of the Jews and primitive
Christians, 190.
8. On legal right, 196.
9. On universal consent. The practice of sundry ancient
and modern nations appealed to, 197.
10. A digression in reference to the Scottish system, 203.
11. Poor laws of America, and the expense they occasion,
208.
12. French system, since the abrogation of their charitable
institutions at the revolution, considered. Its ineffi-
cacy and expenses, 212.
13. The alternative of an absence of poor laws, universal
and disgusting mendicancy, 218.
14. Mendicancy necessary and justifiable in Ireland, in con-
sequence of there being no national provision for
poverty, 222.
1 5. The poor laws of the Netherlands, and especially Hol-
land ; and the expenses they occasion, 224.
16. The objection to the poor laws of this country grounded
on the supposed increase in the burden of the rates,
fallacious, 227.
17. The poor rates have relatively decreased during the
present century, 229.
18. The poor rates have relatively decreased since their first
establishment, 232.
19. The mistakes which have led to a contrary opinion ex-
posed, 233.
20. The number of the distressed and unemployed poor
has relatively diminished since the establishment of
the poor laws, 240.
21. Table, exhibiting some of the preceding facts, and the
authorities on which they are founded, 245.
22. The present system of national charity compared with
(;()\TKNTS„
m
that which prevailed previously, and of which it is the
substitute, 250.
23. The immediate and happy effects of the change asserted
on contemporary authority, 252.
24. The neg-ative robbery implied in now abrogating the
national provision in behalf of the poor, 254.
25. A provision of a more objectionable nature would suc-
ceed such abrogation. An example of this, 255.
26. The poor laws of England ought to be restored to their
original purity and efficiency, 256.
27. The system thus reformed, proposed on behalf of Ire-
land, 259.
28. Principal objections to the proposition answered, espe-
cially the prophetic ones, 261.
29. The preceding arguments, especially relating to Ireland,
confirmed by extracts from a work of Dr. Woodward,
late Bishop of Cloyne, 264.
30. The want of poor laws in Ireland and Scotland highly
injurious to the English poor, 271.
31. Proposition in regard to the distribution of the poor
rates in reference to absenteeship, 273.
32. And subletting, ib.
33. Absenteeship further considered in relation to the
subject, 275.
34. The proposed system of national charity to be con-
nected with labour. Different kinds of labour pointed
out, 276.
35. The advantages of this proposal over the emigration
scheme, 279.
36. Table of the waste lands of Ireland, 2S0.
XIV. Eflfectual protection to Irish agriculture proposed ;
or the continuation or establishment of a system of
efficient corn laws.
1. Agriculture the sole dependence of Ireland, and ought
as such to be fully protected, 281.
2. Protection necessary for the purpose of the preservation
COVTKNTS.
of labour and property, especially of the lesser cul-
tivators and proprietors, 282.
3. The question necessarily national ; and discussed, there-
fore, in reference to the empire at large, 284.
4. Injustice and impolicy of withdrawing protection from
agriculture, 285.
5. The kingdom fully capable of feeding and sustaining
its people : the question, therefore, one of policy and
humanity, 287.
6. Importance of the subject shown from the great nume-
rical superiority of the agricultural interest ; proved
by an appeal to the census of the kingdom, 289.
7. The same fact proved from sundry fiscal and pecuniary
data, 295.
8. Misconceptions removed. Corn, the reverse of dear,
compared with past times, 301.
9. Great mistakes on this point instanced, 303.
10. Foreign supply would not lower prices, but the reverse,
306.
11. Nor equalize them, but the reverse, 311.
12. Would diminish home production, 314.
13. And aggravate the severity of real scarcities, 315.
14. And render them more frequent, 317.
15. Importation, under such circumstances, to be an effectual
relief, should not be perpetually resorted to, 318.
16. Further mistakes refuted. The supposition that im-
portation would, if permitted, be very limited, consi-
dered, 319.
17. The effect of a constant importation, however limited,
shown, 324.
18. Importation would not, on the general balance, increase
trade and manufactures, 327.
19. Would necessarily throw more hands out of employ-
ment than it would cause to be employed, 328.
20. In other respects prejudicial, excepting to a few, 330.
21. Further arguments in favour of importation refuted;
and first, that cheap prices are favourable to manu-
(ONTr.NTS.
tioii
lactures. This disproved by an appeal to past history,
331.
22. The present state of tlie world in reference to the ques-
tion, considered, 334.
23. The experience of England on this subject further
appealed to, 335.
24. Remunerating-, and consequently not low prices, favour-
able to all branches of industry, 335.
25. Low prices unfavourable to the poor, 339.
26. The financial obstacles to a free trade in corn insuper-
able, 342.
27. Illustrated, 346.
28. The proposition in a late number of a popular Review
examined. The miscalculations, as well as cruelty
and injustice it involves, 338.
29. Ruinous consequences of habitually depending on
foreign supplies, 360.
30. The answers and anticipations of the theorists noticed,
362.
31. Ultimate and certain effects of withdrawing due pro-
tection from British agriculture, on both that and
commerce, 366.
32. The peculiar interests of Ireland, in reference to the
question, finally urged, 369.
XV. The Population of Ireland numerically considered,
and the true principle of human increase demonstrated
therefrom.
1. Human fecundity in Ireland regulated, as elsewhere,
by the co-existing numbers.
2. This principle proved, in a different mode to that
pursued in other demonstrations of the same fact.
Table, 375.
3. Proved by the same calculation applied to the cities
and towns of exempt jurisdiction. Table, 378.
4. Preceding facts proved by a different method of cal-
culation. Table, ib.
( ONTENTS,
5. Population regulates the condition of society in Ireland,
as elsewhere, which improves as the former advances,
379.
6. Plenty not increased by fewness of people or iertility
of soil, but the contrary, 382.
7. Consequently, the proposition of the emigration com-
mittee respecting Ireland, fundamentally erroneous
and pernicious, 383.
8. The demonstration more minutely given, and extended
to the counties severally calculated. Table, 385.
9. Objections anticipated, 388.
10. Preventive check not prevalent in Ireland, 389.
11. The true principle of population further proved by an
appeal to the progressive increase of the different
provinces of Ireland. Table, 391.
12. The supposed periods of doubling, and other mis-
conceptions relative to population, refuted, 396.
13. Present ratio of increase in Ireland a diminishing one,
and likely to continue diminishing, 398.
14. Errors of certain writers concerning the effects of
vaccination, on marriages, and mortality, 400.
15. The foregoing facts and principles further confirmed
by an appeal to the imperfect census of 1813 compared
with that of 1821, 401.
16. Deductions, 404.
17. Conclusion. The happy effects of a better policy, in
reference to Ireland, anticipated, 405.
Postscript, 413.
INTRODUCTION.
The following pages were written as a supple-
ment to a work on the subject of Population,
now preparing for the press. The publication,
in the first instance, of a part of a treatise, in
which frequent references are made to the
whole, is so unusual as to demand an expla-
nation, even in times when the apologies of
authors are little attended to, and, indeed,
hardly tolerated. The circumstances which
led to it, are these : —
Some time ago I delivered, to a Literary and
Philosophical Society, in the north of England,
to which I have the honour of belonging, a
course of lectures on an important branch of
our national economy, the Poor-Laws of Eng-
land ; connecting a defence of the principle of
that system, and a view of its progress, with
those practical improvements in its application,
which the altered circumstances of the country
seem to dictate, in order to restore its primitive
character and efficiency. Little difficulty oc-
curred in showing the legal provision for the
poor to have been founded on the plainest prin-
ciples of natural right and justice, as well as
dictated by the most enlarged views of national
policy ; and still less in answering the objec-
tions urged against it imder a very general mis-
b
INTRODUCTION.
apprehension that it has, considered in refer-
ence either to the population or the wealth of
the country, imposed upon us an increasing
incumbrance. Nor was it less easy to establish
a very gratifying comparison betwixt the mode
of preserving the poor, as established in this
country, and the plans pursued in others, (few
of which are destitute of public institutions for
the like purpose,) in regard to its effects on
the general character of the relieved, or even
the economy, relatively speaking, with which it
accomplishes its benevolent designs. Such
were the arguments, amongst others of a similar
tendency, then brought forward, some of which
are briefly noticed in a subsequent part of the
present publication ; forming, on the whole, it
was hoped, a satisfactory defence of our great
national charity. One objection, however, and
that of a most powerful nature, totally irrecon-
cileable with the exercise of benevolence on
any systematic and general plan whatsoever,
and assuming the form and language of demon-
stration, remained unanswered; namely, that
grounded on the modern " principle of popu-
lation." If, as that principle asserts, and pro*
fesses to have proved, there be a constant ten-
dency in human beings to increase faster than
their means of sustentation, whatever be the
arguments in favour of a general provision
for the poor, whether founded on religion, or
humanity, or policy, they are all unavaihng, —
the question is decided for ever. Give what^
INTRODUCTION. HI
ever latitude you please to the prolific powers
of the earth, and to the creative efforts of
human industry, you merely postpone, without
evading, the conclusion ; human subsistence
has necessarily its limits, those of the earth ;
whereas, the prolific powers of increase, if un-
abated and unchecked, would, on the geome-
tric hypothesis, conduct mankind to the inevi-
table catastrophe of universal wretchedness and
want, were the globe itself converted into one
solid mass of nutriment. But this theory is not
content with investing itself with these pro-
spective terrors; it is announced as " constantly
and powerfully operating since the commence-
ment of society *." In every point of view,
therefore, it is fatal to the exercise of charity
as a public and universal duty ; nor does it dis-
guise its hostility. And it must be admitted
that, allowing the truth of this principle of
population, its conclusions, however abhorrent
to our feelings and principles, are necessary and
irresistible. Neither the doctrines of Chris-
tianity, however clear upon this point ; nor the
dictates of humanity, though equally decisive ;
nor the law of the land, which sanctions and
enforces both ; can impose a duty upon us the
practice of which is not only impolitic in its
tendency, but impossible in its very nature.
The real difficulty of the question, disin-
cumbered from the geometric and arithmetic
ratios of increase, which are utterly irrecon-
* Malthus, Essay on Population, p. 1, 4to.
b 2
INTRODUCTION.
cileable with human experience, is plainly this ;
a principle of reproduction, which multiplies
mankind with considerable rapidity, under
certain circumstances, seems necessary to the
spread, and indeed, in some instances, to the
preservation of the human race ; and that it
exists, is proved by the peopUng of the world
originally, or, by what may be to some a more
decisive demonstration, by the rapid increase
which still takes place in planting new coun-
tries and colonies. That this principle should,
as far as nature is concerned, remain arbitrary
and unalterable, involves the consequences al-
ready mentioned ; that is, — admitting the eternity
of the world, which is necessarily one of the
postulata on which the boasted demonstration
of the modern principle of population is found-
ed. That the earth, which, it is confessed on
all hands, is at present very inadequately pos-
sessed, containing probably not a hundredth
part of the population it is capable of sustain-
ing, shall remain, till, in the course of ages, it
shall become wholly incapable of supporting
its increased numbers, may exist as a mere
possible supposition, consistently perhaps with
the letter, though not very reconcileably with
the spirit of revelation ; but to assert as a fact,
that that period will inevitably arrive, contra-
dicts both. Put forth as a demonstration, I
repeat, it identifies itself with infideUty ; as-
suming the eternity of the world as a necessary
part of its proof, it asserts that to be true which
INTRODUCTION.
Christianity declares to be false ; and a period
to be certain and foreseen, which its Author
has declared to be uncertain and unknown.
Arguing, then, in a country professedly Chris-
tian, and in one which, though densely peopled,
contains so many millions of uncultivated acres,
and forming so minute a part of a world all but
entirely waste ; the cultivated parts of which,
as Franklin has somewhere observed, would, if
viewed by a Herschell's telescope from the
moon, only appear, here and there, like so
many luminous spots upon its disk ; it might
have sufficed, one would have thought, to
have reposed, for the present at least, on the
bounties of that Being who has been the
" dwelling-place " of so many generations ; and
if we could not have brought our minds to
expect that He might do in the later ages of
the world, what we are instructed to believe He
did in its earlier ones, — proportion the fecundity
and duration of the life of human beings to
their numbers ; still, that he would accomplish
his purposes regarding His universe, before
His providence should become impaired or ex-
hausted; that if His mercies are not everlast-
ing, they are, at least, calculated to endure till
" the great globe itself, and all that it inherit,
shall dissolve," and the baseless fabric of the
vision of human life shall resolve itself into
the realities of eternity — a period actually
foretold in every part of the Christian records,
and described as one, not of increasing want
INTRODUCTION.
and suffering, but, on the contrary, rather of
luxury and enjoyment ; not when the pre-
ventive check shall be called into full opera-
tion, but when the world shall be " marrying
and giving in marriage." But these arguments,
however satisfactory to the bulk of mankind,
for so they happily are, appear far otherwise to
many of those who discuss the important sub-
ject before us. The philosophers of the day, in-
deed, are very witty on such who, in reference to
it, " cant about God and Providence ;" and one
of the first and sublimest passages which Reve-
lation puts into the mouth of the Deity, " In-
crease and multiply," instead of being any
longer regarded as the " command and blessing
of Providence*," is dexterously resolved into an
inhibition and a curse, or too often quoted only
to be contradicted and ridiculed. No matter
that it still harmonizes with the purest feelings,
and conduces to the best interests of mankind,
whether considered in their individual or collec-
tive capacity ; no matter that its breach would
defeat the will of the Deity, and degrade and
destroy the species ; — it is adverse to the geo-
metric theory, and that suffices. Thus, as one
never charged with too enthusiastic a regard
for religion observes : " The mathematics are
to be every thing, even where they are ridicu-
lous, and men repose no more confidence in
GOD than they would in a broken merchant."
Pursuing the argument, therefore, without
* Burke.
INTRODUCTION.
any reference to the principles, or, as they are
too often regarded, the prejudices of either
natural or revealed religion; on a thorough
examination of numerous facts connected with
the physiology of the human race, the true
principle of increase was discovered, and, by a
series of calculations, all terminating in the same
results, I hope it may be added, fully demon-
strated; a principle of greater efficiency in
accomplishing one of the necessary purposes
of reproduction, that of first replenishing the
earth, or still peopling different parts of it,
than the one it opposes; and, on the other
hand, totally free from the appalling conse-
quences to which that necessarily leads ; and,
above all, in reference to the subject then
under consideration, delivering one of the most
exalted duties of Christianity from the objections
by which it is now assailed, and reconciling its
constant and systematic discharge with the
laws of nature, and the present and permanent
interests of mankind.
The principle of human increase thus ob-
tained, may be very briefly enunciated, and is
simply this ; The fecundity of human beings is,
caeteris paribus, in the inverse ratio of the con-
densation of their numbers ; and, still in direct
contradiction to the theory now maintained, the
variation in that fecundity is effectuated, not
by the wretchedness and misery, but by the
happiness and prosperity of the species.
That mankind cannot possibly multiply be-
Vm INTRODUCTION.
yond the means of sustentation is an obvious
truth, and common to both theories. The dis-
tinction between them, therefore, and it is one
of incalculable importance, both as to the prin-
ciple and its consequences, is simply this ; the
one invests human beings with a superfecundity
which can only be regulated by vice or misery,
or by that which is a compound of both, and,
practically, more degrading and disgusting than
either — " moral restraint : " while the other
maintains, that the law of human increase adapts
itself to the existing numbers of mankind, and
has for its regulator the prosperity and hap-
piness of the species. That the latter theory,
assuming its truth, best comports with the
welfare of mankind, admits of no dispute ; a
priori, therefore, the presumption is, that it is
the law of nature and of Providence ; on due
examination it will be found that the pre-
sumption rises into certainty.
Before any appeal is made to the calculations
by which this principle of increase is esta-
blished, it may be proper to remark, that the
idea thus broadly stated, is in strict ac-
cordance with the physiology of the human
species in reference to this subject, as pro-
pounded from the time of Hippocrates, and
maintained, I believe, unanimously, down to
the present hour. Excluding, of course, cases
of extreme distress, a state of labour and
privation is that most favourable to human
fecundity. A dispersed and scanty population
INTRODUCTION. IX
invariably implies that state ; but as mankind
advance from the hunting to the pastoral, and
from thence to the agricultural stages of ex-
istence, and ultimately rise to the highest
condition of civilization, labour becomes di-
vided, and consequently diminished in its
duration and intensity, and many are liberated
from its drudgeries, so as to devote them-
selves to other and more intellectual pursuits,
or are rendered independent of it altogether,
v^hile the means of subsistence become pro-
gressively augmented, and ease and luxury
more generally diffused. At every step the
principle of increase contracts, and, as I con-
tend, v^ould pause at that precise point where
it had secured the utmost possible degree of
happiness to the greatest possible number of
human beings. Meantime, it must be remarked
that, in this auspicious progress, their moral
and intellectual advancement more than keeps
pace with the improvement in their natural
condition ; while the climate, the seasons, and
the face of nature itself, participate in the uni-
versal blessing of an enlarging population.
Having, as I conceived, ascertained the re-
ality of this benevolent law of nature, I thought
it necessary to examine, with the greatest at-
tention, the proofs and arguments by which the
contrary theory professes to be supported, when
all of them seemed to resolve themselves into
so many direct evidences of the more cheering
view of the subject, leaving not a remaining
INTRODUCTION.
doubt as to its certainty and truth. Impressed
with its importance, I therefore extended the
argument beyond my first intention, of render-
ing it merely subservient to a defence of the
poor-laws ; and, I may, perhaps, be permitted
to say, the inquiry has been pursued with the
utmost diligence ; with what success the public
will speedily be enabled to judge. In the mean
time, a very brief notice of some only of its
leading points becomes necessary, in conse-
quence of having been induced to publish the
present part of the work in the first instance,
for reasons, which, it is hoped, may at the
present moment justify so unusual a course.
In the first book, the principles of the pre-
vailing theory of population, as propounded
by Mr. Malthus, are examined, especially the
geometric and arithmetic ratios, which are
proved to be misplaced ; and the checks which
are supposed to reconcile their adverse ten-
dencies are shown to have diminished in their
operation as population has increased ; con-
tradicting, consequently, the theory they are
brought forward to support ; more especially
the preventive one, which is the main reliance
of the whole system. This, by a strange and
fatal error in the principle of its calculation,
has been supposed to increase in its prevalence
as the theory requires, when, in point of fact,
it has diminished in every country, and espe-
cially in those of which the contrary is the
most confidently asserted. The disputed ques-
INTRODUCTION.
tion of the precedency of population to food
is likewise discussed, and the priority of the
former is shown to be the order of nature, being
not only the means of producing and dispensing-
plenty amongst human beings, but, by the
creation of that sole spring of human exertion,
necessity, of advancing mankind through suc-
cessive stages of civilization, and preserving
them from relapsing into barbarism. In this
book it has been found necessary to show the
utter destitution of all claims to originality,
either in regard to its principle, or the terms in
which it is propounded, of that theory which
is regarded by many in the light of a discovery;
and this, not for the purpose of settHng a point
of authorship, but to show that it is one of
those many systems which, as Aristotle ob-
serves, the wisdom of preceding ages has
examined and rejected, and the ignorance of
subsequent ones succeeded for a time in
reviving. Generations ago, the notion of the
supeifecundity of human beings was expressed
in quite as forcible terms; supported by exactly
the same arguments ; and precisely the same
remedies were propounded for the " evils it
occasioned," as at the present day. It was
a doctrine, moreover, which had as many ad-
vocates then as now, but it was met by the
arguments and the abhorrence of the greatest
and the wisest of our countrymen ; and however
often it may be revived by selfishness and
ignorance, it will descend so branded to the
remotest posterity.
Xll INTRODUCTION.
In the second book an appeal is made to
the experience of mankind in different ages and
countries of the world, particularly those which
have been referred to for a contrary purpose ;
and it is shown that whenever and wherever
the population has advanced, instead of the
individual shares of the means of subsistence
having been diminished, directly the contrary
has been invariably the effect; and that not only
has the quantity of food increased in a super-
proportion, but that its nature and quality have
undergone as striking an improvement. The
proof, indeed, extends to the animal creation :
as population has multiplied, the surplus food
has sufficed to sustain a far greater relative and
still increasing number of those animals which
are kept by man for convenience, pleasure, or
display, and which, in an advanced stage of
civilization, consume so large a quantity of the
products of cultivation.
On the other hand, it is clearly shown that
in every country where the inhabitants have
unhappily diminished, there, instead of the
means of subsistence having been more liberally
dispensed, the population has been invariably
still more degraded and reduced in condition
than in numbers.
In the former part of this book, a view is
taken of the history of Greece and Rome, and
other ancient states, in relation to this question,
and the opinion of the ancient philosophers
and legislators is shown to have been very dif-
INTRODUCTION". XIU
ferent to what is now represented ; their fears,
generally speaking, were excited by the evils of
a declining rather than an enlarging population ;
fears, prompted by the facts they witnessed and
recorded, and which futurity has confirmed in
so striking a manner. It may be added, that
the character of Plato is completely rescued
from the imputation of his having ever contem-
plated infanticide as a regulator of the popu-
lation of his imaginary Republic, much more
from his having recommended it.
In this branch of the argument, which neces-
sarily extends to a very considerable length,
the history of our own country, as incomparably
the most interesting and important part of the
inquiry, is particularly attended to. It is hoped
that facts as conclusive as they are curious are
brought forward, in proof that England has
confirmed, in every period of its history, the
principle of population for which I contend, as
that of nature and of God.
The succeeding section of the work is devoted
exclusively to the consideration of the popula-
tion of China and America ; the two main pil-
lars of the contrary theory — the latter, as it is
supposed, exhibiting the principle of human in-
crease doubling itself at the presumed intervals
by procreation only, as in actual operation ; and
the former, as furnishing an example of that
principle having advanced to its utmost limits,
arrested by necessity, and "kept down to the
level of the means of subsistence " by those
XIV INTRODUCTION.
distressing and disgusting checks which the
theory enunciates. These being the only prac-
tical demonstrations of the system opposed,
particular attention has been paid to each.
And regarding the latter, if we may be per-
mitted to dismiss the authority of the *' Lettres
6difiantes et curieuses," the " lying missionaries "
of Adam Smith, in favour of modern authorities,
and amongst these, especially, our own scientific
countrymen, this appeal, so constantly made, is
completely silenced. China is now known to
be a country very sparingly inhabited, except-
ing, perhaps, upon the borders of the grand
canal, and often so, even there. Malte-Brun,
from the numerous authorities he consulted, es-
timates the number of the Chinese at consider-
ably less than half that given to Lord Macartney
by the veracious Chow-ta-Zhin, in a document
which he ridicules, and which, on the face of it,
is a palpable forgery. Mr. Malthus, however, I
perceive, with an unaccountable pertinacity, still
continues to put forth this statement, even now
that several official censuses of China have been
published within a few years past, all of which,
agreeing with each other, confirm the record-
ed opinion of every recent writer of credit who
has had an opportunity of judging on the sub-
ject, that China, in reference either to its extent
or fertility, is decidedly one of the worst peopled
countries upon earth . If the Chinese, therefore,
are plunged in the misery Mr. Malthus describes,
and resol't to infanticide iri order to repress their
INTRODUCTION.
numbers (a fact, however, which the latest and
best writers seem unanimously to discredit),
China becomes one of the strongest proofs in
favour of the argument I am maintaining. In
England there are two hundred and twenty-
seven inhabitants in the square mile ; in China,
with her boasted soil and double harvests, there
are ninety-seven only.
But to the population of America, far better
known than that of China, and on which the
theory I am opposing professes to be mainly
founded, still more particular attention has been
paid, and by a series of proofs and calculations,
which extend through several chapters, it is
clearly shown that the geometric ratio of in-
crease has no existence even there, much less
that the increase actually taking place is in-
dependent of emigration. Both of these con-
clusions rest on a variety of proofs, founded
principally on the American censuses them-
selves. Two branches of the argument, how-
ever, shall only be alluded to on this occasion ;
either of which is perfectly decisive. A very
few years subsequently to the period when Mr*
Malthus reports the settlers of New England
as amounting to twenty-one thousand two hun-
dred only, adding, that it was calculated more
left them afterwards than went to them*, (a
number which, without the least examination,
is palpably incorrect and irreconcileable with
the importance of our North American Colo-
* Essay on Population, p. 33S.
XVI INTRODUCTION.
nies, even at that early period) we find, on
the authority of the reports of the governors
of the respective states now existing in the
pubhc offices at home, that the inhabitants,
then principally confined to New England,
amounted in the whole to considerably up-
wards of two hundred thousand souls ; so that
if the geometric ratio contended for had been
true, there would have been at least twice as
many inhabitants in the United States as exist
there at the present moment, had there not sub-
sequently gone a single emigrant to the Ame-
rican shores. The particulars and dates of the
enumerations alluded to are given, and a history
of emigration from thence to the period when
America became, as one of its most intelligent
writers observes, '*the colony of Europe," is sub-
joined, by which it is conceived the fallacy of
the strange assertion, that emigration has been
" immaterial " to the rapid growth of its popu-
lation, will be fully apparent. The admission of
an annual accession of ten thousand, with an
increase of three per cent, upon that number,
instead of being " immaterial '^ would, I think,
as calculated by logarithms, amount, in a
single century only, to more than six-sevenths
of the entire white population. But no such
annual increase as three per cent, can possibly
take place on an entire population, by " procrea-
tion only," consistently with the established laws
of nature, developed under the most favourable
circumstances. The error, however, of attri-
INTRODUCTION. XVU
buting to these accessions, consisting, as gene-
rally speaking they do, of individuals in the
prime of life, and principally of young men only,
the ordinary rate of increase of an entire popu-
lation, comprising individuals of all ages, is
pointed out ; though the supposition is almost
too absurd to require notice.
A variety of tables are subjoined, calculated
on data which American statistics furnish, show-
ing the pretended demonstration, that the popu-
lation there increases in the ratio so often and
so confidently asserted, is not true, nor even
possible.
In the fourth book, the mis-statements of nu-
merical facts, and errors in calculation, by which
the theory I oppose is attempted to be sup-
ported, are exposed; one or two instances of
which only shall be noticed in this place. Mr.
Malthus, the main advocate of that princi-
pie, not satisfied with attributing to it many of
the evils we suffer at present, invests it with
powers of a far more dreadful nature than have
been as yet developed ; he says, " not more
than one half of the prolific power of nature is
called into action in this country*," intimating
that, if nature were unchecked, " there would
be one annual marriage out of sixty persons,
instead of one marriage out of one hundi*ed
and twenty -three persons, as is the case at
present.''*f This is most strange, especially as
he has, in his previous calculation, recollected
* Essay, p. S()\. t Ibid.
INTRODUCTION.
that it requires two individuals to form one mar-
riage; consequently, upon his supposition, one
person would annually marry out of every thirty,
whereas there is in England only one annual
birth in every thirty-seven inhabitants ; it follows,
therefore, according to that author, that were it
not for the operation of his " preventive check,"
there would be about one-fourth more indivi-
duals married in this country than are born ! If
we turn to the census as divided into ages,
and suppose the sexes between fifteen aud
twenty to be exactly balanced, and that all at
that period of life should enter into the marriage
state, it will be seen that only about one mar-
riage in one hundred inhabitants could annually
take place : — nay, if all were united at the font
there could only be one in seventy-four. But
the foregoing supposition is merely the echo of
an opinion expressed by Dr. Franklin in his
juvenile days, (from whom^ indeed, the former
professes to have partly derived his notions on
population,) that in America there is one annual
marriage to every fifty inhabitants ; and, as it
seems to be in the very nature of the arguments
on human increase not to be easily satisfied, Mr.
Warden has further improved this proportion
into one in every thirty. Now it happens, that
in the last American census there is a column
given which expresses the number of the males
from the ages of sixteen to eighteen, and if every
individual of these were to marry at the mean
age of seventeen years, only one marriage in
INTRODUCTION. XIX
eighty-six inhabitants could possibly take place* .
Such are the errors into which writers on popu-
lation fall on this important point, which it can-
not but be acknowledged are so far from being
slight and immaterial, that they are necessarily
subversive of their entire theories and calcula-
tions. Other mistakes of quite as gross and
obvious a nature, such as the supposed opera-
tion of the preventive check in different times
and countries, the effects of epidemics upon
registers, and on a variety of other subjects, are
fully exposed, but will not be further alluded to
on the present occasion.
Such is a slight sketch of the negative part of
the argument, if I may so speak, by which the
true and benevolent principle of population is
supported ; a system which it will be seen is,
from first to last, inducted from a series of deci-
sive facts which the history of the world uni-
formly presents, and sanctioned by the equally
unanimous authority of the greatest and the
wisest men it has ever produced. In a day, how-
ever, when past experience is but little regarded,
and authority not at all ; when an appeal to the
ancient permanent sense of mankind would often
actually prejudice a cause in behalf of which it
is made, amongst the " pert and noisy pretenders
of the day;" it is happy for the interests of
human nature that the true principle of increase
* The superior longevity in Eiighiud may account for the smaller
relative proportion of possible marriages at about the same period
of life in England.
INTRODUCTION.
is demonstrable upon a basis unassailable by
such ; ancient events may be misinterpreted or
disputed ; authorities may be neglected or de-
spised; but still the principle announced can
never be shaken ; — it is not so much a matter of
reason as of arithmetic ; it rests not upon ar-
guments, but upon facts.
To a short synopsis of the fifth book of the
treatise, about to be published, the reader's
particular attention is, therefore, solicited, as
substituting a system in the place of the one
dispossessed, and establishing it by a series of
tables and calculations amounting in every
instance to a proof of its truth. These, spread-
ing over some hundred pages, cannot now be
given, however essential to the argument ; the
author can, therefore, only stake his veracity
to the reader for the truth of the statements
about to be alluded to, a pledge which he
hopes speedily to redeem ; and it is a matter
of doubt with him whether any thing further
than the heads of the ensuing argument need
to have been given on the present occasion.
The law of population, by which the increase
of mankind has been and still is, in all cases,
regulated, is simply this: The fecundity of
HUMAN BEINGS, UNDER EQUAL CIRCUMSTANCES,
VARIES INVERSELY AS THEIR NUMBERS ON A
GIVEN SPACE.
Merely premising that, as mankind multiply
in any country, the thinly -populated districts
become more crowded ones, and these again
liNTKODUCTION. XXI
rise into towns and cities, and vice versa on
any diminution in their numbers ; I proceed
to demonstrate the truth and reality of this
graduated scale of human increase.
First, By a comparison of the fecundity of
marriages in different countries, all of which,
where the necessary information is recorded,
class themselves in precise conformity with this
principle, and are the more prolific the less they
are peopled. The objection that, in the latter
case, greater plenty prevails, and marriages are
more frequent and more early, is anticipated
and refuted. The contrary is strictly the fact*.
2. By showing that in the different local
divisions of one and the same country, the
same law of population prevails ; and the vary-
ing fecundity of the marriages is determined
accordingly. This section of the argument is
of peculiar importance, as it not only shows
ts operation by a series of more minute and
particular proofs ; but, at the same time, it
entirely obviates the objection which might be
raised, and not unreasonably, in reference to
the comparative accuracy with which different
countries may furnish the data on which the
* The apparent exception of newly-plaiitcd countries and colo-
nics which had the advantag-e of proceedinp;- from more densely
pe()})led nations, and still retain the benefit of havini^ access to such
for their products, is fully considered. Cut such oft', even now, from
the latter privilege only, and left to themselves, the rule of nature,
which distributes the greatest measure of its bounties wlierever there
are the greatest number of human beings on the same space, would
be instantly apparent. The reason why it is, to a certain degree,
otherwise in Ireland, it is one of the ])rime objects of this publica-
tion to pi>int out.
INTRODUCTION.
preceding proof is founded, and the various
habits which may be supposed to affect, in no
shght degree, the question at issue. But when
the different divisions, and even subdivisions of
the same country, furnish the demonstration
that human fecundity is thus graduated, no such
objection can possibly be urged, and the gene-
ral argument is invested with that circumstan-
tiality of evidence, which invariably makes the
most powerful impression. A corroboration of
the like kind, though still more curious and
minute, is given under the next head, in which
the varying increase of human beings is proved
to be regulated as before explained,
3. By showing that the difference in the fe-
cundity of marriages in towns is, in like manner,
determined by the number of their inhabitants.
It is plain, however, that the theory, if true,
is capable of a species of historical evidence ;
and such is again the fact. Not only, then, is
the principle proved to be in actual operation by
these comparisons between the varying degrees
of fecundity in different countries and districts,
but its truth is furthermore confirmed,
4. By showing that in the same countries
and districts, compared at different periods,
the fecundity of marriages has diminished as
their population has augmented ; and this uni-
versally, wherever the facts necessary to form
the conclusion are on record. Lest it should be
once more objected to this striking demon-
stration, that this is attributable to increasing
INTRODUCTION. XXlll
misery or moral restraint, I will mention that
this supposition also is clearly refuted.
The argument is, however, susceptible of an-
other distinct order of proofs, though, happily
for mankind, of far rarer occurrence than the
former ones. That human beings multiply in-
versely as their numbers, is proved,
5. By showing that, on any great and sudden
diminution in the inhabitants of any country,
city, or district, the fecundity of the remainder
has become instantly increased. To this sur-
prising, and, as it respects the subject under
consideration, decisive fact, I have given the
most minute and persevering examination, and
have found it, as a law of nature, invariable and
universal. So certain is it, that its operation is
distinctly visible on observing the conceptions
of particular periods, as constantly influenced
by those slighter variations in the deaths which
occur in this and other countries, as well as by
those sweeping mortalities, which have been oc-
casionally experienced ; when, indeed, the effect
alluded to has been not unfrequently observed
and recorded; though never referred to that
general law of nature, of which, when viewed
in any considerable number of cases, it clearly
forms a part *.
* This surprising fact has, indeed, been latterly remarked, but
lias been ascribed to a cause which has obscured the deduction
which ouj^ht to have been drawn from it, if not, indeed, reversed it.
It has been resolved into an increased number of marriag-es,
which, it is assumed, mortality occasions ; particularly by Mr.
Malthus, who is very full of this idea throup,-hout. Prepared by the
theory already shortly ])ropounded, to nuiintaiu that a diininution
XXIV INTRODUCTION.
The preceding theory, and the facts by
which it is substantiated, are furthermore cor-
roborated,
in the numbers of a population is not the means of increasing the
plenty and prosperity of the remainder, (which idea, if it be a paradox,
is one for which Providence, and the history of human beings is ac-
countable,) and entertaining^ a hig-her idea of human nature than to
suppose, that in this, or any other country, '* the funeral baked-
meats do coldly furnish forth the marriage table," or, in other
words, that a time of excessive mortality is that of increasing matri-
mony, I examined this matter thoroughly, and found, as I had
expected, directly the contrary to be the fact. Mr. Malthus alluded,
and I observe still does, to a single table of Sussmilch, how fairly I
shall show; I have gone through the whole of them, as well as those
relating to all other countries, to which I have had access ; and I con-
fidently pronounce, and shall assuredly prove, in reference to this sub-
ject, a truth as surprising as it is important and certain ; that a period
of greater mortality is that of greater fecundity ; being, at the same
time, as invariably one of a diminished proportion of marriages.
This will be found true on examining a sufficient number of in-
stances, in every part of the world.
I am the more diffuse upon this particular proof of the principle
of population previously propounded (which, in the work referred
to, occupies several chapters) from its direct bearing on the proposi-
tions respecting unhappy Ireland, my immediate subject. Granting
the principle to be true, which it most certainly is, that to dimi-
nish the number of human beings, is to increase the fecundity of
the remainder ; and in what sort of an attitude do those place
themselves, who are for interfering, by cruel or revolting expe-
dients, with the established order of nature, whether by clearing
farms and villages, driving and deporting the inhabitants, or by any
method whatsoever, creating, to use the heartless term of the day,
those vacuums which an irreversible law of Providence will as-
suredly replenish in spite of all their efforts ? That such has ever
been the consequence has long been apparent, the reason is, I speak
confidently, now unfolded ; let all such, then, pause in a course which
has, perhaps, hitherto been excused by ignorance, but which, per-
severed in, will be that of presumptuous folly as well as of wanton
cruelty.
Furthermore : If this last developed principle be true, can any-
thing further be required, I would ask the candid mind, which still
retains its confidence in the kindness of Providence, and its belief in
the existence of a GOD, in order to disprove and demolish the
theory of human increase, which it is the business of this work
to oppose ? For can it be credited, for a moment, that a dimi-
nution in the numbers of human beings is, in any case, a benefit
to the remainder, as is now so confidently and luifeelingly main
INTRODUCTION. XXV
6. By an appeal to the physiology of the
human race. This, as expounded by the highest
authorities, ancient or modern, fully reconciles
the preceding views upon the subject with the
facts adduced, and even demands their adop-
tion. That want promotes reproduction, and
that repletion retards it, I prove, in this section
of the book, to be an universally acknow-
ledged physical fact; and it is one, which,
without the least violence, resolves itself into
a principle which regulates human fecundity,
not by the misery, but by the happiness of the
species. It may be repeated, that where society,
as in its first stages, is the most scattered,
there is it that there are, necessarily, the most
labour and abstinence ; a state so decidedly
favourable to prolificness as to render it the
acknowledged remedy for cases of sterility,
which, it will not be denied, are the least fre-
quent in such a condition of life. As numbers
increase ; plenty increases, and labour abates,
in a yet greater proportion ; till, in a plenary
state of population, general ease and luxury are
diffused. At every advancing stage of society
the principle of prolificness still diminishes ;
tained, when it is seen that the moment of such a diminution,
effected by whatsoever means, is that when a law of nature is put
into operation, whose tendency is to fill up the vacuum thus
created, and with beinf^s destined to be so long helpless and bur-
densome, and pronounced, by the theory I am opposing, utterly
valueless to society? A law, thus evidently thwarting all the
efforts human beings might make to relieve themselves from the
evils which the ])riuci])le of population is said to occasion, would
operate as a ])rinciple ofvigilantand unceasing malevolence, were the
views, too fretjuently taken of population, true. They are otherwise.
INTRODUCTION.
and Nature, not by a beautiful fiction, but by a
constantly-operating law of real benevolence,
makes the principle of human multiplication
the unfailing instrument in elevating the condi-
tion of mankind, and still so regulates its ope-
ration as to prevent its ever becoming other-
wise. Knowing and contemplating the extent
of her provision, she is thus making a per-
petual and unwearied effort to raise her off-
spring to the utmost elevation of prosperity
and happiness, and has so calculated her laws
that they shall never surpass it. This view of
the subject is further proved,
7. By showing, from the registers of this
and other countries, that, directly contrary to
what has been frequently put forth ; in the
dearer years the marriages are the most pro-
lific in conceptions, which singular fact is de-
monstrated by a variety of proofs and calcu-
lations. The foregoing conclusions, and many
others connected with the argument, are fur-
ther confirmed and demonstrated,
8. By an appeal to the registers of the
peerage of the empire, a distinct class in
which, as it is admitted, the preventive check
does not exist. By a minute examination of
these, not only are many of the preceding
positions corroborated, but others, of an
equally curious nature, are elicited. It is a
first and favourite maxim with the theory now
opposed, that mankind, contrary to what I
have been maintaining, would, if unchecked.
INTRODUCTION.
" breed up to the level of their food." This
supposition, the particular class of society I am
now referring to completely negatives. Taking
the number of creations, during any given
period, the seventeenth century, for example,
and it is seen how few heirs male are now
remaining, or even descendants. I have also
taken the two preceding generations of this
body, and recording every circumstance re-
specting them, connected with the subject under
consideration, I have shown that the strong-
tendency of mankind in a high state of affluence
and ease, is not to multiplication, in the '' geo-
metric ratio," or in any ratio, but to dimi-
nution and extinction ; notwithstanding the facts
show, that the preventive check did not exist
at all ; that the period of marriage was, on the
average, very early, and the health of the par-
ties, as unequivocally manifested by their great
longevity, unimpaired. A minute examination
of the authentic documents, thus referred to,
has not only confirmed many of the preceding
statements, but developed other very interesting
and important physiological facts, which have
hitherto escaped general attention.
The preceding views of the subject have
been confirmed,
Lastly, by the analogy of nature in the pro-
cesses of animal and vegetable reproduction,
especially the former. The heads of this
branch of the argument are too numerous to
be here recapitulated ; I shall, therefore, con-
XXVIU INTRODUCTION.
tent myself with merely stating, that they
illustrate and confirm, in the minutest manner,
every principle of increase advanced in the
preceding pages.
Such are the outlines of the true principle
of population, and the arguments by which it
is established; the latter, as I conceive, em-
bracing every species of proof of which the
subject is susceptible. As to the calculations
by which it is demonstrated, the minuteness and
uniformity of their results are such as to have
occasionally excited a suspicion of their reality:
though the more the operations of nature are
submitted to computations of this kind, the
more exact and certain they will appear ; that
is, if they are grounded upon a sufficient
number of instances, as she seems purposely
to conceal her laws when contemplated in indi-
vidual cases, however certain and exact their
results on the general average of her ope-
rations. This hint is perfectly necessary to
those who may wish either to confirm or confute
any of the preceding positions by personal
examinations. Dr. Dugald Stewart has a fine
passage on this subject, to which I must refer
the reader, and shall now merely mention that
I have adduced several instances in proof of
the arithmetic of nature, if I may so express
myself, and amongst the rest the following.
Nothing can be less certain than the proportion
of the sexes in the offspring of different mar-
riages individually contemplated, but nothing
INTRODUCTION,
more uniform than the results, though made up
of such a multitude of discordant proportions.
The reason of this law is obvious, and strictly
appertaining to the subject : the institution
of marriage is the only certain way of multi-
plying, or even continuing the species, and
hence their numbers are proportioned in a
manner which has exercised the powers of the
ablest mathematicians in this and preceding
ages. But still there is an observable difference
in the proportions of the sexes in different
countries, and this difference again conforms to
a law of nature hitherto, as I believe, unob-
served, and one of a singularly exact and
curious nature. Calculating from the nubile
period in both sexes ; in the offspring of those
marriages contracted at a corresponding period
of life, the sexes will be about equal, but if
otherwise, the number of that parent's sex shall
prevail who has longest postponed that union,
and prevail just to that degree so as to make up
for the diminution which, agreeably to the law of
mortality, will take place in that interval ; that
is, where the age of the man exceeds, the num-
ber of his male children shall exceed ; where,
in the rarer instances, the female shall be the
oldest, the children of her sex shall, in like
manner, be more numerous ; this, it will be
shown, as calculated on the entire number of
instances, taken from the peerage ; as well as
by other proofs, is the certain and exact
result.* This law of nature, again is no whim-
* This law, also, it will be proved, extends to the animal creation.
INTRODUCTION,
sical or unnecessary regulation, but one which
guarantees that institution, by which, as al-
ready noticed, she alone contemplates to con-
tinue the species : otherwise the habitual
postponement of marriage by one sex would
(as Mr. Malthus has somewhat too hastily
pronounced, when referring to a passage in
Aristotle) consign a certain proportion of the
other to necessary celibacy. Other proofs of
these exact regulations in the laws of nature
are instanced, but will not now be brought
forwards ; one only shall be added to the fore-
going, in proof that she is not more exact in
calculating than intent upon executing them.
Lord Bacon, I think, somewhere observes,
that in those tribes of the animal creation,
amongst which the measure of reproduction
is, in some sort, voluntary, there is a kind of
natural arithmetic which is observed, rendering
it almost impossible to frustrate the designs of
nature, however often you attempt it. What
nature, in this instance, by a mysterious in-
stinct, dictates to the birds, she accomplishes
in regard to human beings, by laws which are
placed beyond their voluntary control. It is
a received principle amongst the most eminent
physiologists, that the measure of female pro-
lificness is, in all cases, determinate, (at least,
such was the opinion of the greatest of them.
Hunter,) and further, that the earliest period
of adolescence is not the most favourable for its
complete evolution ; on the contrary, premature
INTRODUCTION.
marriages were decried by the ancient advocates
of population, as having a contrary tendency,
by endangering both the hfe of the mother
and the offspring. But on a point so essential
to the system of the day, and made, indeed,
the foundation of most of its suggestions, much
attention has been bestowed, and being one of
those matters which may be decided by arith-
metic, and when, therefore, the attempt to do
so by mere reasonings becomes ridiculous, this
question, likewise, is submitted to numerical
demonstration. And from the collected re-
gisters of the peerage already referred to, and
by a different appeal, involving a far greater
number of facts, promiscuously recorded, for
a different purpose, and as little liable to the
suspicion of incorrectness as the former, it is
found, that early marriages are not conducive
to a larger increase of population than those
contracted at riper years, but to the contrary.
The annual prohficness is, in the former case,
less, and the proportion of mortality in the
offspring is greater — the opinion of antiquity
on this subject being thus fully confirmed. One
thing disclosed in this examination is very
striking : the regularity of the laws of nature
on this point also. Commencing with the earli-
est ages, and proceeding to the latest ones, at
which marriage usually takes place ; (confining
the observations, of course, to the period of
natural prolificness ;) the later the age to which
marriages have been postponed, the more ra-
XXXll INTRODUCTION.
pidly is the principle of prolificness evolved,
the annual fecundity regularly augmenting till
it rises to its utmost .height, the mortality of
the offspring diminishing in an inverse ratio ;
so anxiously bent does Nature appear to ac-
complish those purposes which every petty
intruder pronounces to be prejudicial, and feels
himself meritoriously engaged while impeding
and frustrating to the utmost of his power*.
The calculations thus appealed to, do not
exhibit mere "tendencies,'' subject to constant
" oscillations," but establish the true theory of
population upon a series of results, in every
case as uniformly and regularly graduated, in
conformity with the principle laid down, as
though the facts upon which they are grounded
had been fabricated for the purpose; and form-
ing a species of demonstration which is beyond
* It is not a part of my design on this occasion to follow the
system announced to its necessary deductions, and those which
present themselves here are too obvious to render it necessary. Any
general attempt to put off marriage beyond the period nature
assigns for that connexion, were it successful, would thwart the
designs of Providence, as plainly indicated by all the foregoing
calculations ; but, as has been lastly intimated, it would defeat its own
purpose. Without producing the intended effect, it would wound
the morals of the community ; inflict irreparable injury on private
happiness ; disturb the appointed order and succession of the gene-
rations, so essential in the social system to human interests and
happiness ; and, in many instances, disrupt the most important
connexions altogether, and that at a period when their preservation is
the most important ; while the lower the rank in society, the heavier
would fall the evils it would inflict : and it is confessedly the poor
at whom the theory which recommends it, takes aim. The con-
fusion and distress it would inevitably occasion in that immense
class, are inexpressible. " Late marriages," says Franklin, " make
early orphans ; " orphans, which, as the same system dictates,
should be left destitute of all legal support. And this is political
economy ! O rare Daniels !
INTRODUCTION. XXXlll
the possibility of the doctrine of chances to
construct. I now regret that even the present
work does not include a few of these tables,
which would have certainly been more striking
as an argumentum ad oculos, than verbal as-
surances can be, however credited.
A dissertation on the balance of food and
numbers throughout animated nature, is added
to this part of the work ; in answer to the axiom
of Mr. Malthus, asserting that the latter have a
universal tendency to excess *. In this, it is be-
lieved, some views are taken, and facts brought
forward, of an interesting nature, strongly con-
firmatory of the general principle contended
for, and demonstrating the minute and unerring
calculations into which nature has entered, in
order to secure a purpose so essential to the
happiness, as well as existence of all sentient
beings : a purpose which, it is further proved
by an appeal to the condition of such, is fully
accomplished. The argument, however, is not
very capable of abridgment, and embraces too
many topics to be gone into at present.
The sixth and concluding Book of the trea^
tise is devoted to the discussion of the neces-
sary deductions from the principle developed
and established in the preceding ones, and
which, as the practical application of the whole,
is not the least important part of the work.
But I must forbear entering upon these like-
* Malthus. Essay on Population, p. 2.
d
INTRODUCTION.
wise, as they would necessarily carry me into
explanations of considerable length : suffice it
to say that the principle of population for which
I contend, reconciles the affections, duties, and
interests of human beings, whether collectively
or individually considered ; and identifies the
whole with the dictates of nature and the laws
of God.
Such, then, is a sketch of the principle of po-
pulation about to be submitted to the public,
together with the numerous proofs and tables
from which it is inducted. These, without
being mere selections of particular cases —
without being garbled or strained for the pur-
pose, but taken fairly, promiscuously, and
indeed, universally, from all the records of
human existence accessible to the public, fully
establish the results, which form themselves into
the theory now developed ; the necessary con-
nexion of the several parts of which, and the
obvious harmony of the whole, afford a distinct
and pleasing proof that it is the system of
nature and of truth. The moral arguments in
its favour ought, however, with human beings
to be the most irresistible ; but with those who
too much disregard such, the physical proofs
on which it is founded will, it is hoped, be
regarded as conclusive. The contrary theory,
indeed, professes to ground its demonstrations
on the exact sciences ; but most fallaciously ; for
the geometric ratio of increase, for which it
contends, is a mere abstract idea, and never had
IN'TRODIJCTIOX.
nor ever will have, an existence in any of the
operations of nature ; while that for which I
contend conforms to laws which are in visible
and perpetual operation. Without affecting a
species of demonstration inapplicable to the
subject, — the principle of the increase of human
beings admits of a most striking mathematical
illustration : compared with the provision made
for them, it conforms to the law of the hyper-
bola in approachmg its asymptote ; it will still
approach, without reaching, much less surpass-
ing that line, or, to use the current phrase,
" level of food," which nature has prescribed
and provided. It is somewhat curious that the
progression of population, in certain cases where
it has been apparently the most unrestrained,
has, when geometrically delineated, assumed
precisely that form.
It is quite obvious that the two systems
now before the public cannot exist as separate
truths ; and equally so, that no middle theory
can be formed of parts of both, now so much
the practice. They are, in all respects, " con-
trarieties, at war," and agree in no single point
either as it respects principle, or consequences,
present or future. The one maintains that the
law of human increase, if not checked by a con-
stant and unnatural restraint, would, notwith-
standing " the universal prevalence of every
known virtue in the greatest conceivable degree,
plunge society into the most wretched and
d2
XXXVl INTRODUCTION.
desperate state of want*" and misery; the
other demonstrates that, in connexion with
the virtues which it calls into existence
and perpetuates, it is so regulated as to ele-
vate human beings to the utmost degree of
prosperity. Equally opposite are they as to
the means by which they respectively main-
tain the varying principle of human fecundity
to be governed : the former asserting that it is
by the perpetual operation of want and misery
that the numbers of mankind are " kept down
to the level of food ;" the latter, that increasing
plenty is the regulator. That their effects,
therefore, on the feelings, the principles and the
policy of mankind are directly adverse, not
sophistry itself can dispute, nor will it, indeed,
attempt to do so. The one teaches human
beings to regard each other as rival for an
insufficient share in the bounties of Provi-
dence; the other as copartners in an abun-
dance, which overflows as they multiply, and
by means of that multiplication. That, cal-
culating on a principle of cruel selfishness, pro-
nounces mankind to be redundant by thou-
sands, and consequently as worth less than
nothing ; — this, sees in their growing numbers
not the signs only, (that all confess,) nor yet
the instruments, but, as the wisest and the best
of mankind have ever done, the very elements
* Malthus. Essay, &c p. 493.
INTRODUCTION.
of all prosperity. It is not in the nature of
things, therefore, that either of these views can
be otherwise than stroQgly influential on the
mutual feelings and conduct of mankind ; hence
in their practical consequences they are, if pos-
sible, still more opposed than in principle.
A law such as the one now propounded, which
should multiply human beings rapidly where
such increase is necessary and advantageous,
keeping up their numbers so as to create and
preserve in constant exercise that necessity to
which all natural and intellectual superiority is
to be traced ; and still so moderated as to limit
their multiplication by their means of subsist-
ence, and the full measure of their happiness ;
effecting, therefore, all the good, without per-
petrating any of the evils of the contrary
system, none can deny would be a desirable
regulation in the economy of nature. Its very
desirableness, then, I contend, is no mean
argument in favour of its truth : strange indeed
would it be were there a principle in creation
in which human beings could suggest a plain
improvement. We are, therefore, strongly w\ar-
ranted in expecting the existence of such a law.
Some of the happiest efforts of moral philo-
sophy, in modern times, have been those which
have demonstrated the existence and exempli-
fied the wisdom of the Deity, especially in
the structure and functions of animated exist-
ences, by showing that similar purposes have
been effectuated by corresponding contrivances
1 INTRODUCTION.
in what are called mechanical inventions *.
Now, in many of our complicated machines,
particularly in the national one, for such, per-
haps, the steam-engine may be denominated,
there is that which, though moved by the same
impetus, so acts as to retard or accelerate the
velocity and equalize the movements of the
whole : the significant name of this is " the
governor." The law of population for which I
contend, is simply this principle, or, if you
please, contrivance, transferred, for a similar
but infinitely more important purpose, to the
social machine : where reason would feel it
difficult to believe it could be wanting, and
where experience has happily proved, in all
ages and countries of the world, that it actu-
tually exists.
The desirableness of such a principle, how-
ever, I have never heard disputed — its exist-
ence, at least, when the proofs were not
advanced, constantly ; and simply because it
did not seem easy to render a philosophical
reason for that which is undoubtedly a phy-
sical fact. This is mentioned to guard the
reader against a similar delusion. How, it
may be asked, should this law be otherwise
than obscure in the mode of its operation,
when everything connected with the subject is
enveloped in impenetrable mystery ? No great
stickler for miracles, Rousseau, has observed
* See Paley's Natural Theology, passim.
INTRODUCTION.
that, " in the generation of animated and organ-
ized bodies, the human mind is lost as in an
abyss." Reproduction, through all the innu-
merable tribes of animal and even vegetable
existence, is, in all its forms, and in every single
instance, a miracle to which nothing but the
continuous evidence of our senses could recon-
cile our belief: one, indeed, which learning and
imagination and experience have long at-
tempted to penetrate and expound, but which,
after all their labours, the most recondite pro-
fessor understands as imperfectly as the un-
tutored peasant : a subject which, the more it is
considered in itself, or in relation to its infinitely
numerous dependencies and ramifications, the
less comprehensible it becomes. But of all
the phenomena it involves, the principle for
which I contend is, perhaps, the least obscure.
It is the system which I am opposing, indeed,
clear as it stands from all pretension to origi-
nal discovery, and totally unembarrassed by any
physical facts, or abstruse calculations, which
implies, if duly considered, far the greater
miracle ; a miracle of malignity in the book of
Nature and of Providence. It implies a solitary
error in the computations of nature, or, more
properly speaking, of its great Author, of the
most important kind, to rectify which it repre-
sents Him as delivering His animated works,
and especially man, to the regulation of the
Manichean principle, for which it so strenu-
ously contends, ridiculing the idea of His
Xl INTRODUCTION.
interference in their behalf*, when it is hardly-
consistent with a belief in His existence, to
suppose that He would not interfere. The
true theory, on the other hand, merely sub-
scribes to the ancient axiom, natura non abun-
dat, nee deficit : or, to express the same truth
in more sacred, as well as more inteUigible
terms, that " God hath ordered all things in
number, in measure, and in weight/' In a
word, it recognises the wisdom and benevo-
lence of the Deity, asserting his care of his
creatures, either in his immediate and constant-
ly-presiding presence and providence, or what,
perhaps, not less highly exalts our ideas of his
infinite perfections — in that unerring prescience
which, joined to his power and goodness, has an-
ticipated from everlasting all the contingencies
of our existence, and by an uninterrupted series
of secondary causes, which runs through all
time and connects itself with eternity, has ade-
quately provided for them: grasping, as the
prince of Poets represents the universal Father,
in his Almighty hand that golden chain, bright
with benevolence and mercy, by which He
sustains, from the heights of eternity. His uni-
versal offspring. It is thus it " betakes itself
to miracles "f ."
But if we must abstain from these sacred
appeals to providence and to God, and refer
simply to what some would call natural causes,
* Malthus, Essay on Population, pp. 272, 373.
t Ibid.
INTRODUCTION. xU
(though the greatest philosopher the world has
ever yet beheld, and in his greatest work, has
pronounced the term, when strictly applied,
unintelligible,) still I maintain that the real
principle of population, regulated as explained,
is strictly analogous to, and, indeed, a part of
a law which appears to pervade and govern
the universe. Whether we contemplate nature
in those orbs which are perpetually iterating
their ancient courses around us, or in those
mighty conformations or minuter parts in which
matter is presented to our closer examination ;
or pursue our inquiries into the vegetable and
animal kingdoms, we find all its several parts
strictly relative, and reciprocally dependent
upon and influencing each other, forming, there-
fore, a connected whole ; involving a series of
calculations and proportions, as exact as they
are immense, of which magnitude, motion,
number, space, and time itself, are essential in-
gredients ; thus connecting creation, from its
ubiquital centre to its boundless circumference,
in one unbroken and everlasting chain, and pre-
serving, in all its vast and complicated move-
ments, the eternal equipoise of the universe.
Of this law the sublime discoveries of Newton
form but a part, and to this it is humbly con-
ceived the principle which governs the number
of human beings maybe as plainly referred.
I mean what, perhaps, may be, for the present,
expressed by the term — the Law of Relation.
The more nature is contemplated in this point
xlii
INTRODUCTION.
of view, the clearer, it is conceived, will her
operations appear, till it will be found that there
is nothing isolated or independent in the uni
verse but its eternal Author ; and least of all
man. Seeing, then, how exactly he is adapted to
the station he holds, and the condition in which
he is placed in nature, it would be monstrous,
indeed, to suppose that, last of all, his numbers
should be disproportionate to the space he is
appointed to occupy and the sustentation pro-
vided for him. But in pursuing the thoughts
that thus suggest themselves on the subject, I
am wandering far from the purpose of the pre-
sent publication, to which I shall now return.
It has been already remarked that, on apply-
ing the law of population, as explained, to the
test of past history in different nations of the
world, or to their present condition, its truth ap-
peared abundantly confirmed. There remained
one country, however, and that, unhappily, a
portion of the British Empire, which, before ex-
amination, I had concluded would constitute an
exception, though such an exception as would
confirm, rather than confront, the general rule ;
I mean Ireland. That country, deprived as it
long had been of its capital, and degraded and
impoverished by absenteeship and emigration,
was plainly placed in an unnatural state ; and
would, according to the preceding view of the
subject, continue rapidly to increase, without
that increase being accompanied, as in other
cases, by corresponding advantages. But, on
INTRODUCTION'.
examination, I found that even Ireland still con-
formed to the general law, in precisely the same
manner as all other countries, though, per-
haps, not to an equal degree ; that those dis-
tricts which were the least peopled were the
most prolific ; and that the most densely inha-
bited parts, notwithstanding the comparative
sterility of their soil, were invariably the most
prosperous ones. The historical part of the
inquiry was likewise equally conclusive, and
added another proof to the uniform body of
evidence previously collected on the same
subject. The most exact analogy was, there-
fore, established ; authorising me to apply the
whole theory of population, thus confirmed in
all its essential particulars, to Ireland. But
even the statistics of that country alone, esta-
blishing the true and immutable law of increase,
afford abundant proof that the expedients medi-
tated in regard to its inhabitants are as opposed
to the principles of nature, as they are to those
of patriotism and sound policy ; and that, as
certainly as they are attempted, they will
be frustrated. It, perhaps, may be thought to
minister to the ends of individual selfishness to
" clear estates," " tax," or demolish " cottages,"
" drive'" hamlets, and expose helpless multi-
tudes to direct starvation, though this, if duly
considered, is extremely doubtful : but let not
the actors in such disgraceful scenes any longer
claim the merit of patriotism for their deeds ;
at least let the nation forbear to act upon the
xliv
INTKODUCTION.
exterminating hypothesis, that getting rid of a
thousand labourers here and there would be
" a gain certainly;" or contemplate the depor-
tation of tens and hundreds of thousands of the
inhabitants, upon the principle of making va-
cuums, to use the absurd phrase of the day.
Those vacuums nature abhors, and will take
good heed hastily to replenish. The fact has
been long noticed ; the cause, it is believed, is
now developed ; and is perfectly distinct from
the common supposition of their occasioning
an increased number of marriages. Those who
may be inclined to dispute this point, are fore-
warned that they will have to maintain their
argument against a few of the first rules of
arithmetic. Nor is it less important, or less
obviously true, on examination, that to diminish
the number of people would be to deteriorate
the condition of the remainder. As a false and
contrary principle of population, however, is
being acted upon, inflicting great individual
misery wherever it obtains ; and as it seems to
be in immediate contemplation to carry it into
effect to a still larger extent, — I have been in-
duced to put forth the following pages some-
what prematurely ; and, perhaps, in reference
to the general argument I have undertaken,
which is of a more important character, and
will occupy a far larger work, somewhat inju-
diciously: for although Ireland itself fully
proves the principle for which I contend, yet as
it furnishes the fewest statistical facts by which
INTRODUCTION. xlv
to substantiate it, of any country to which I
have appealed, it certainly forms the least strik-
ing part of that series of demonstrations which
will be shortly submitted to the public. If,
however, the principle unfolded be true, no
personal considerations could have justified me
in withholding it from the public at the present
crisis, so momentous in reference to it. I have
acted upon that consideration ; and in now re-
viewing what I have produced, I fear much has
been omitted very pertinent to the subject,
and still more retained that is, perhaps, super-
fluous to it. If the latter comprise any thing
that can be construed personally, I shall still
more deeply regret the haste and inadvertency
with which I have written. Not so, however,
as it regards any arguments or expressions,
however strong, aimed against the system
I have opposed throughout ; that would be
to affect a candour very inconsistent with sin-
cerity and truth, and one which, as applied to
the subject, would be a very dubious virtue.
Feeling, as I do, that it is equally opposed to
the honour of God, and the interests of mankind ;
and is, from first to last, as cruel as it is falla-
cious, I have expressed myself in correspond-
ing language ; and, in so doing, if any justifi-
cation seem necessary, I will present it in the
words of Bacon. " Sharp and bitter writing,"
says he, " is not hastily to be condemned ; — for
men cannot contend coldly, and without affec-
tion, about things which they hold dear and
precious."
Xlvi INTRODUCTION.
Having now, as I intended, developed the
true principle of population, and the nature of
the proofs by vv^hich it is supported, it is due to
the theory to state some of the diflBculties it will,
doubtless, have to encounter, which may cause
it to be disputed or neglected for a time, but
which I feel confident, (founded as it is upon
indisputable facts,) will only postpone, without
being able to prevent, its ultimate prevalence.
And, first ; the contrary system which it has
to displace before it can obtain attention, for-
bidding as it seems to be, has many points of
attraction to those who espouse it, and has
undoubtedly spread very widely and taken deep
root. The modern and fallacious principle of
population appeals to the strongest, though
certainly not the most amiable passions of
the human heart; it consults the fears and
soothes the selfishness of those to whom it ad-
dresses itself; it graduates the virtues and
charities of social life, and even changes their
nature, as expediency or interest dictates : it
absolves, in great measure, wealth and power
from their deep and anxious responsibilities ;
excusing the sloth and negligence, if not even
sanctioning the misrule of those whose elevated
dut it is to mitigate or remove human miseries,
by attributing those miseries to the laws of
nature and of God*. Moreover, it is so pro-
pounded as to avail itself of the weaknesses of
the intellect, as well as those of the heart. It
*Malthiis, Essay on Pop., p. 367.
iNTIlODUCTTOX.
is announced as an abstract truth, with which,
one of the greatest of mankind says, " the mind
of man, to the extreme prejudice of knowledge,
so much dehghteth ;" in " barren generahties,''
which, as an authority hardly less than Bacon,
warns us, " ought never to be trusted *." While
the very terms in which it is announced, — geo-
metry and arithmetic, to the use of which
mankind have been accustomed to associate
ideas of certainty and precision; together
with the confidence with which it is asserted
and repeated, have contributed to disarm sus«
picion, and to induce the mind, without the
fatigue of examination, to surrender itself to a
settled conviction of its truth. These, and many
other reasons, have concurred to spread a doc-
trine which has been always more or less ac-
ceptable to a portion of mankind. At present,
therefore, it is received and regarded in the
light of a settled axiom. Modern philosophers
embrace it on pain of forfeiting their title to
their very name; periodical writers almost
unanimously espouse it, and unceasingly spread
its dogmas through every part of the earth ;
legislators seem on the very point of reducing
the system into practice ; and even many of
the expounders of our religion, though they
cannot pollute the well-head of revelation with
its principle, yet are busily engaged in tinging
the stream with its pernicious admixture. That
* Hooker. Even Rousseau saw tliat " £ronorai and abstract irlens
have been the source of the greatest errors" into which mankind fuive
t^allen.
Xlviii INTRODUCTION.
the notion once imbibed should be tenaciously
retained, is natural. Philosophy, as it is well
known, has not merely its fashions, which, like
those of manners, are deemed indispensable,
however absurd, but it has its prejudices, which
the history of every age can testify are, at least,
as strong as those of ignorance. That it has
its pride, was never doubted ; and a change of
opinion, especially on so plain a point, would
be deemed a subscription to its own degrada-
tion. The stronger, therefore, the reasons
which are advanced against it, the more deter-
mined will be their adherence to it. Some of
this class, indeed, have been heard to declare
that they would as soon resign their belief in
the first propositions of Euclid, as in those of
Malthus ; asserting, as one of them has done
publicly, that the system is at least as certain
as the rotation of the earth on its own axis.
But the most powerful support this doctrine
receives is from the modern system of political
economy, of which it is an acknowledged basis.
On this subject I wish to say a few words, in
explanation, having made as free with that
system as it does with all others. I mean not,
by this modern " science, " that true national
policy, which has long pursued the real interests
of the country under the guidance of common
sense, experience, and humanity ; and whose
course has been pointed out by the finger of
Providence. Seeing that nature has equally
bestowed upon all nations the necessaries of
INTRODUCTION. xHx
existence, and unequally distributed her super-
fluities and luxuries, it shapes its course accord-
ingly. In the first place, affording due encou-
ragement to internal industry, with a view to
secure the labour and the lives of the peo-
ple, it places its foreign intercourse upon its
natural and permanent footing, and enters into
a system of liberal interchange with the sur-
rounding nations, not with the fears of the
miser, or the feelings of the gambler, but with
a view to the mutual and perpetual advantages
of each. Never trampling on those interests
which may stand in its path, till they can be
safely and advantageously transplanted, it pur-
sues that steady course which has conducted
this country from its once degraded condition
to that high and palmy state of prosperity which
it has long enjoyed. Though attending to the
interests of the community, it has never yet
recognised Plutus as the one divinity, nor Poli-
tical Economy as the sole prophetess of the
nation ; nor filled the temple of legislation with
" the tables of the money-changers ;" nor made
mere jobbers and speculators its oracles. It has
carefully attended to commerce vv^ithout having
been dictated to by it ; knowing that there are
" other things than are dreamt of in its philoso-
phy," namely, the health, happiness, morals, and
well-being of the mass of the community, with-
out securing which, even riches would make to
themselves wings and fly away. Its maxims
have tended to harmonise the various interests
1
INTRODUCTIOX.
of the community, and to secure their advan-
tages severally, not by sacrificing them to each
other, but by promoting the prosperity of the
whole. These are the principles which have
conducted this nation by a gradual, and slow,
indeed, but solid advancement, to its present
state, and seem to have in them the elements
of perpetuity . Nor has the period through which
they have prevailed been that of mercenary im-
provement merely, it has been one of high in-
tellectual advancement ; it has been illustrated
by genius, and ennobled by valour, " beyond
all Greek, beyond all Roman fame." Such,
then, is not the policy I allude to in my remarks
on political economy. But it is that system
which has lately sprung up amongst us ; a thing
made up of " shreds and patches f partly of
truisms, partly of palpable blunders, but princi-
pally of a string of unconnected paradoxes^
which may be either, and which is self-elevated
into the rank of a " science," in which, such is
the temptation, every one is at once a professor,
and, under a sort of immediate afflatus, utters
oracles. It is to these fancied revelations, and
not to those plain and universally acknowledged
principles that may be still retained, that I
allude, and which I have identified with the
modern system*. Though all of them agree
* The pretensions of modern political economy as a *' Science,'*
may be well explained in the language of Blumenbach, applied to
another modern science of a very similar character. When that
celebrated Professor was asked what was his opinion on Craniology,
he thus expressed himself :—([E;S iJJt bltl tfarill toasi toajr isft, MxCti
IVTHODUCTJON. Ji
that the short and direct path of human interest
has, from the creation downward, never been
discovered, much less trodden, till their days, —
still no two of them concur as to its exact di-
rection ; on one point, however, they are una-
nimous, namely, in asserting the doctrine now
opposed, the superfecundity of the human race,
and, consequently, the necessity of checking
their increase. It is in their capacity as zealots
for this notion that it becomes necessary, in my
present argument, to allude to them, or rather
their opinions ; and to contrast their views upon
population with the ancient and authentic prin-
ciple. It was the object of that true national
economy which they despise and would fain
displace, to raise the value and multiply the
numbers of our countrymen; to spread the
greatest possible degree of happiness amongst
the utmost possible number ; objects of iden-
tical, instead of incompatible pursuit, their
notions to the contrary notwithstanding. But
it is the purpose of the new school to regard
and treat men as mere animated machines, and,
indeed, to supplant them by inanimate ones,
were it possible ; to pronounce them as worth-
less, or otherwise, just as it may please the
great capitalists (whom it is enabling to absorb,
as fast as possible, the middle ranks of society)
bill bas; mu ; aber tJa^ bad luaf)v idt, ist ntd)t ncu, itnlJ tJajJ iuasi
ntU i^t, iit mc\)t Ujal)r. (There is nmch in it tliat is true, and much
that is new ; but that vvliich is true is not new , and that which i:*
new is not true.)
lii
JNTKODUCTION.
to determine regarding them, instructing such
meanwhile, that they are under no imaginable
obligation, but what selfishness dictates, to
prefer the labour of those by whom themselves
have been raised and are supported ; and that
wealth ought not to be called upon to relieve
that starving poverty, by whose former exer-
tions it was created. Nay, so far has the mer-
cenary doctrine of this school advanced, as
to pronounce that the virtues themselves are
marketable commodities *. The perfection of
this system, therefore, is the abjection of the
species. But the question with which I have
mainly to do is not one that is to be decided by
capital, the golden image now set up, the
omnipotent of the present system; it lies
between the Creator and his creatures, and
is simply this, whether his Providence is,
and will continue, equal to the supply of
their wants. This is the precise question ;
meantime, it is somewhat strange that the
economists can reconcile the conclusion, at
which they seem unanimously to arrive,
with some of their own notions. They have
written largely on the subject of Capital, and
on its definition ; and yet they seem to forget
that whatever it may be called, or however
defined, it is that and that only which gives its
possessor a command of the product of human
labour ; consequently human beings constitute
the wealth,— the capital of the world: it is
* Malthus, Essay on Pop., p. 64.
INTHODUCTION. \\\[
they only who create it ; and they alone who
give it its value when created. They have
said much, too, about the market of labour, as
it is called, and yet seem not to know, or at all
events frequently to forget, that mankind are
reciprocally producers and consumers, and that,
under proper regulations, they are necessary
to each other whatever be their numbers ; that
mutual wants are so balanced and connected
in the mechanism of the social system, of
which necessity is the main-spring, as to pro-
duce that perpetual motion which nothing but
the " feathers" of these philosophers can dis-
turb or destroy. This mutual dependence of
man upon his fellow man, whatever be the
attempts to weaken it, and however successful
they may be for a time, will certainly be found
as strong in the last, as it was in the first stages
of human existence, nay far stronger, for rea-
sons which are elsewhere pointed out. As the
body politic enlarges, all its members partake
of the general growth : when, therefore, it has
attained to its gigantic stature, still less than
when it was in its infant state, can the hand
say to the foot, " I have no need of thee."
But the idea that mankind should outgrow their
dependence upon each other, whimsical as it
seems, is far more tolerable than that they
should become too numerous for the provision
of their common parent. Yet this last is the
notion that political economy, and the modern
principle of population, share in common, found-
liv INTRODUCTION.
ing upon it a system of policy as adverse to the
feelings and interests of the human race as it is
to the honour of the Deity.
Such are the numerous and powerful obsta-
cles which will, for a time, successfully oppose
the progress of the true principle of population,
to which must be added others interposed by
the manner in which I have discussed the sub-
ject, and more especially the deductions I have
drawn from it ; to the latter, as voluntarily
encountered, a few words are due. Seeing, on
a review of the system propounded, that it was
clearly the intention of Providence to furnish
the necessary means of subsistence to every
country within itself, (otherwise the argument,
as it respects the whole, would at length inevi-
tably fall to the ground,) I concluded that the
intention of the Creator and the duty and inter-
ests of his creatures were identical ; and have
therefore connected my theory with a defence
of internal cultivation. To this view of the
subject, however, many of the commercial
class, to say nothing of the political economists,
are, as I think, unwisely opposed; their objec-
tions therefore are excited. This course, how-
ever, it might be supposed, would conciliate the
opinions of the agriculturists ; but the senti-
ments expressed as to the real interest and duty
of that class as a body, equally dictated by the
same theory, will excite at least equal opposi-
tion. The self-same principle, political economy,
which so unhappily prevails in other ranks
FNTHODUCTJON, Iv
of society, has long infested this ; the principle,
however disguised, of mercenary monopoly,
which, resolving everything into a question of
momentary selfishness, is setting every interest
amongst us at variance, and is rapidly swal-
lowing up that middle rank of the community
in which has long resided the moral strength of
the British community. The advice of the
celebrated Hobbes on an enlarging popula-
tion, is, as to its wisdom and humanity, as
authoritative as if it had been pronounced by
an oracle ; it has certainly the inspiration of
common sense, " Live closer, and cultivate
better" — but, strange to say, the sinister policy
recommended by our great agricultural autho-
rities in these circumstances is to diminish the
number of the cultivators, and to enlarge, or as
Lord Bacon has it, to engross farms. I am per-
fectly aware that it is useless to argue with
those who imagine they have a personal inter-
est in the question; but should these pages
meet the notice of any of the greater landed
proprietors of the empire, whose object, I am
persuaded, it has always been to promote the
interest and happiness of all their dependents,
however they may have, in this instance, mis-
taken the means, I earnestly solicit their atten-
tion to what is urged in behalf of the more natu-
ral, humane, and, as I contend, the more pro-
fitable course.
To this enumeration of the strong objections
to the propositions with which the system is
INTRODUCTION.
connected, I will only add its defence of the
poor laws, against which a general outcry is
attempted to be raised, and the proposal that
their principle should be extended to Ireland.
I shall not mention the hostility of absentee-
ship and all its train of apologists and depend-
ents, powerful in wealth and numbers, and now
fully armed in the panoply of political economy.
Its enmity has had to be encountered by all
who have attended to the evils which the
population of that country had long suffered,
or suggested those remedies which alone
have the least prospect of finally removing
them.
But notwithstanding these and many other
powerful obstacles against the system of popu-
lation advanced in these pages, obtaining pre-
sent acceptance ; grounded as it is upon the
experience of mankind in all ages, and demon-
strated by a series of calculations founded on
authentic data, as well as dictated by the
feelings and constitution of human nature, I
feel a confidence not unbecoming the argu-
ment, that it will, however neglected or
assailed, ultimately and universally prevail.
There are many who have reluctantly received
and retained the contrary opinion solely from
a conviction of its truth, by whom the real
principle of human increase will be felt as a
liberation from a theory anything rather than
consoling to a benevolent mind ; and still more
who, in spite of apparent demonstrations to
INTKODUCTiON.
the contrary* have retained their entire confi-
dence in the doctrines of divine revelation
and the sufficiency of nature, to whom it will
afford a sacred triumph; such, it is believed,
will regard the ti'ue principle of human in-
crease as unfolding an essential link in the
chain of a wise and ever- watchful Providence,
and heightening the pleasing confidence with
which they repose on its eternal dispensations.
" It is Heaven upon Earth," says Bacon, " for
a man's mind to rest in Providence, move in
charity, and turn upon the poles of truth."
This principle, and the proofs on which it is
founded, have been rather widely submitted,
and never, in any instance, however strongly
the contrary theory may have been previously
fixed in the mind, have they failed to produce
full conviction. I have, therefore, only one
other reason to add to those already men-
tioned, as having induced me to publish a part
only of my work in the first instance, giving
in that part an outline of the entire theory ;
and this being of a nature purely personal,
ought, perhaps, to have been omitted. I was
not without sufficient reasons for beUeving
that the system was about being presented to
the public surreptitiously ; and I confess, having
had, as far as I know, no precursor in the
view here taken of the true principle of Po-
pulation, and no assistance in the long and
laborious research which its demonstration
Iviii
INTRODUCTION.
involves, I felt not unwilling to endure what-
ever odium or otherwise might attend the
enunciation and proof of a regulated ratio of
prolificness as governing the multiplication of
mankind, and constituting the principle of
human increase a law of unerring and perpe-
tual benevolence.
IRELAND.
§ I. (1.) That division of the British empire which
forms the subject of the following pages^ has been
occasionally thought irreconcilable w^ith the principle
of population as previously laid down^ even by those
who have fully admitted the proofs on which it
rests in relation to all other countries. On the other
hand, it presents facts equally adverse to many of the
positions usually maintained : in every point of view,
it seems an anomaly in the history and progress of
civilized society. It presents a country, superemi-
nently endowed with all those natural advantages which
have elevated, in their turn, every people who have
possessed them, gradually sinking in the scale of na-
tions; and exhibiting the astounding spectacle of a
population rapidly increasing in numbers, without,
as in all other cases, manifesting any corresponding
improvement either in its character or condition.
(2.) Many there are, at the present time, who ima-
gine they have obtained a clue to the difficulties which
environ this dark and mysterious subject, namely, the
modern theory of population; which, alas! is never
a mere abstract or inert principle, and least of all in
the present instance. It not only soothes the negli-
2 IRELAND ; ITS EVILS^ [§ I.
gence of those who ought to succour Ireland, and pa-
ralyzes the efforts of those who would, hy attributing
her sufferings to the laws of nature and of God, but,
sanctioned by its twin "science," political economy,
strenuously proposes palliatives which would fall upon
the people as the deadliest punishments. Two dog-
mas they have in common, as to the causes of the
suffering and degradation of that country, and, at
present, one specific cure. The former are these :
1. The distresses of Ireland are owing to a superfluous
population, still increasing faster than the means of
subsistence. 2. Those distresses are aggravated and
multiplied by the universal use of the potatoe^. The
remedy is to be found in a diminished population.
With regard to the former_, it is singular enough that,
in one and the same breath, Providence is arraigned
for bringing too many human beings into existence,
and for affording sure means of sustentation to their
increasing numbers by a stupendous provision of
nature, hitherto almost untouched rather than ex-
hausted, and probably, in reference to any future
population of the earth, inexhaustible^. As it respects
' What Mr. Malthus calls the " Potatoe System." (Essay, p.
576, note.) — Curwen, " Observations on the State of Ireland," vol.
ii. p. 121.
^ Let it not be imagined, from this remark, that I am an advo-
cate for confining the population of Ireland (as it almost is at
present) to the use of this root, much less for submitting all other
countries to a similar restriction. What I mean will be best
gathered from such facts as the following: "Mr. Stepney last
year had two acres and a half of potatoes, which fattened four
bullocks, maintained eighteen pigs, produced seed for four acres
this year, and supplied his own family, consisting of twenty per-
sons."— (Wakefield's Account of Ireland, vol. i. p. 450.) Mr.
Curwen says, " One acre of potatoes would feed at least ten
persons the year round." — (Observations on the State of Ireland,
vol. ii. p. 122.) According to Arthur Young's estimate, Ireland
§1.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 3
Ireland, millions upon millions of acres, now totally
waste and idle, a little industry, directed and aided by
what is called capital, would enrich with this subter-
raneous harvest, and at the same time clothe with
cattle ^^a thousand" of her barren *' hills," so as to
sustain and satisfy many millions of human beings
more than are now often almost starved (ten times as
many is the lowest calculation of our ablest agricultu-
ral authorities^) ; but this natural expedient, equally
dictated by humanity, policy, and necessity, does not
chime in with the current notions. It is deemed more
desirable to dissipate British capital in expatriating
British subjects; in planting dubious friends, if not
would sustain, by the aid of this plant, about one hundred millions
of inhabitants.— (Young's Tour through Ireland, vol. ii. part 2,
p. 24 ) As to the peculiar adaptation of this root to the universal
sustentation of all those animals (including poultry) on which
man subsists or depends, see every agricultural work of note
which has been published within a century past, especially the entire
works of the latter writer ; also Radclifle's " Agricultural Survey
of the Netherlands," &c. The plenty, health, and happiness
it confers on mankind, are the theme of exultation with Young,
even when he is speaking of Ireland, where it is almost exclusively
used. In calculating the number of human beings that might be
sustained by the extended culture of this inestimable root, allowing
them, together with it, as large a portion of animal food as would
gratify appetite consistently with health, the anticipations of the
most sanguine friends of population, however extravagant they
may have been deemed, are infinitely exceeded: all this fully
accounts for the well-grounded and instinctive hatred which our
anti-populationists bear to this nutritious and palatable food. On
these calculations, however important to political arithmetic, I
shall not enter ; my immediate purpose being merely to deliver
this stupendous and inexhaustible gift of Providence, bestowed
on Europe at the precise period when it became needful, from the
insulting neglects of our political economists, or their still more
degrading notice, in barely allowing it a place at the sideboard,
and forming, perhaps, when nicely boiled or delicately scalloped,
a pleasing accession to the "science" of gastronomy
' J. C. Curwen, Observations on the State of Ireland, vol. ii.
pp. 32. 122.
B 2
4 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [§ I.
future enemies, in distant quarters; peopling the
northern deserts of America^ or the arid regions of
Southern Africa, or even the continent and remote
islands of the Southern Ocean, and thus, in a vast
plurality of cases, terminating human misery, instead
of reheving it. Such is the policy which is now
beginning to be recommended from high places, even
as it regards England : the very " thews and sinews"
of the empire are to be transferred to distant climes,
in order to increase our internal prosperity and
strength ! Regarding the latter, they may, indeed,
differ a little at present ; but, touching Ireland, the
greatest unanimity prevails : Ireland must be depo-
pulated to be enriched.
(3.) Notwithstanding this ominous union of opinion
amongst our economists, there are happily certain
obstacles which oppose the fulfilment of their views ;
such as the common sense and humane feelings of the
British people ; and these are rendered insuperable
(thanks, this once, to our poverty,) by our total
inability to carry such antinational schemes into ex-
ecution. Still, however, a mere theoretical adhe-
rence to such notions is in the highest degree mis-
chievous, because it occupies the place of those
enlightened and liberal views which would dictate a
better policy, and stands in the way of those patriotic
exertions which might, and, in this age, assuredly
would, ameliorate the condition of that unhappy
country, and which, by developing its manifold
resources, would scatter blessings over an improving
and a prosperous people. But before I proceed to
examine and expose the pernicious errors of the
§ I.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 5
modern theory in reference to Ireland, and attempt,
in turn^ to point out what I conceive to be its " bane
and antidote/' I will here insert a table, exhibiting its
population at the different periods specified, when
attempts were made to ascertain it. We are not to
infer that these numbers (with the exception, how-
ever, of the last, which are the result of actual enu-
meration) are correct ; a variety of circumstances,
existing in most countries, and some important ones
peculiar to Ireland, prevent us from so supposing.
We may, however, reasonably conclude, that the
inaccuracy lies on the side of deficiency throughout^
and especially in the remoter periods.
Synoptical View of the Estimated Population of Ireland.
Date. How ascertained. Number of Souls.
1072 Sir William Petty 1,100,000
The same corrected 1,. 320,000
1G95 Captain South 1,034,102
1712 Thomas Dobbs, Esq 2,099,094
1718 The same 2,1G9,048
1725 The same 2,317,374
172G The same 2,-309, lOG
17.:J1 Established Cierg-y 2,010,221
]7o4. Hearth-money Collectors 2,372,034
I7<i7 'I'he same 2,544,276"
]777 The same 2,(i90,556
1785 I'he same 2,845,932
1788 Gervais Parker Bushe, Esq 4,010,000
1791 Hearth-m(mey Collectors 4,20G,G12
1792 'IMie Rev. Dr. JJeaufort 4,088,226
1805 Thomas Nevvenham, Esq 5,3:)5,456
1814 Incomplete census of 1812 5,937,856
1821 Census 55 Geo. 111. c. 120 G,S01,S27
By this table, the population of Ireland appears to
have doubled about once in every sixty-five years, a
great rate of increase, if the emigration which has
taken place from thence, for at least a c(Mitury past,
and which was relatively far the largest in the former
part of that period, is taken into the account ; for I
6 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [§II*
totally differ with those who pronounce emigration,
under such_, or indeed any circumstances, to be " im-
material" in its effects upon the progress of popu-
lation. To this drain must be added those losses,
whether arising from intestine tumults and rebellions,
or frequent and fatal epidemics, which, during a far
more extended period, have been almost peculiar to
Ireland. The increase, though thus checked and
impeded, is doubtless very large, and is in strict
accordance with the principle of population for which
I contend ; it conforms to the facts, and is confirmed
by the physiology upon which that principle is
founded : while the wretchedness with which, in this
exempt case, these enlarging numbers are still accom-
panied, instead of confronting the true theory of
human increase, is precisely that sort of exception
which establishes its truth.
§ II. (1.) But, before I prove this, I shall, in the first
place, examine the arguments of those who, holding
the modern notion on the principle of population,
attribute the distress and degradation of Ireland to
excessive numbers ; and who exultingly point to that
country, as fully demonstrating all the dogmas they
have advanced. A very short consideration of the
subject will, I think, suffice to abate the confidence
of such, if not finally to destroy it altogether.
These, then, I would first ask, is Ireland over-
peopled in reference to its potential produce ?
On the contrary, even on the showing of the Emi-
gration Committee, there are in Ireland, at the present
time, at least 4,900,000 acres of productive land un-
§ I I.J AND THEIR REMEDIES. 7
cultivated, independently of 2,416,664 acres deemed
(on what authority I know not) incapable of im-
provement ^ These immense tracts, a little of the
constantly abstracted capital of the country might,
and would, bring into the most luxuriant state, as
their cultivation should become necessary ; while the
very act of reclaiming these would be the means of
correcting the management of the rest, now imper-
fectly improved, so as to produce the means of human
subsistence in quantities it would not be easy to cal-
culate, certainly far beyond the possible consumption
of double the present inhabitants of the entire island,
(to take a far lower estimate than any which agricul-
ture presents to us,) even were the people as much
improved in their mode of living as they would be
increased in numbers. In the mean time, while Nature
has provided the amplest means for this amelioration^
and solicits from us their improvement, is she, or
'^ human institutions^," chargeable with the misery
which their neglect occasions ? Is the principle of
our policy, or that of population, to blame as it
respects Ireland ? In a wx)rd, are these sufferings,
under such circumstances, chargeable upon man or
upon God ?
(2.) But, to disencumber the question of all those
calculations which a reference to the potential produce
of the country involves, and of which political economy
would avail itself, in order to ^' darken counsel " by
obscure definitions and abstract discussions, neither
intelhgible nor interesting to the mass of mankind ;
' Minutes of evidence before tlie Emigration Committee, Third
Report, p. 36 1.
' Mr. Mallhus woukl say, the laws of nature.— Essay, p. 367.
8 IRELAND; ITS EVILS'^ K I^'
let U9^ secondly, ask the advocates of the new theory
of population^ who, as before noticed, imagine they
prove their point by a reference to Ireland, is Ireland,
leaving totally out of consideration its possible fer-
tility, overpeopled in reference to its actual produce ?
This, again, I must answer as before. Most cer-
tainly not; but very much to the contrary: and to
this answer, and its necessary consequences, I must
call the serious attention of the advocates of absen-
teeism, to whom I shall address myself more particu-
larly hereafter. Ireland, instead of not producing
sufficient for the sustenance of its inhabitants, pro-
duces far more than they ever consume, exporting a
greater quantity of its edible products than probably
any other country of equal extent in the whole world.
I had collected the annual returns of its exports of
this nature for a series of years past, when, at the
moment I was inserting them, a condensated statement
of them, at a period particularly calculated to put the
question to the severest test, met my eye. It is con-
tained in a useful little work, entitled " Statistical
Illustrations," in the emphatic language of whose
author I shall present it. '^ With an ignorance and
pertinacity presumptuous as the expatiations and
assertions adverted to above are fallacious and delu-
sive" (alluding to some previous remarks on ab-
senteeism), ^' it is asserted that the misery of Ireland
arises from an excess of population beyond the power
of the country to supply subsistence ; but, in the face
of such assertion, and whilst an appeal was being
made in England to rescue Ireland from famine, and
a subscription of £304,181, in 1822, was raised on
§ 11.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 9
that plea, .£30,882 only of which was expended for
articles of subsistence, and 6^9,374 more in potatoes
for seed ; the remainder being distributed in money/*
(much of which doubtless found its way into the
pockets of the absentee landlords,) "Ireland exported
articles of subsistence, alone, to no less an amount
(at the very reduced value of that year) than
£4,518,832; and, in the three years, 1821, 1822, and
1823, to the enormous amount of upwards of sixteen
millions ; whilst nearly the whole of the remaining
exports, to the amount of upwards of ten millions
more, in those three years, were composed of the
products of the Irish soil ^" Whether the immense
quantity of cured provisions which Ireland supplies,
in her own ports, to the royal navy, as well as the
merchant shipping of this vast maritime empire, has
to be added to these enormous amounts, I have not
ascertained, nor is it necessary ; the argument is
abundantly triumphant either way.
In the face, then, of such facts as these, the hardihood
of attributing the misery of Ireland to a population
redundant and excessive, in reference to the means of
subsistence there produced, and of the appeal con-
stantly made to that country in proof of the principle
of population, as now explained, is certainly with-
out parallel.
No further proofs seem necessary upon a point ab-
solutely incontrovertible ; I therefore conclude^ tliat if
Ireland, at the present moment, only partially and im-
perfectly cultivated, far more than sustains its inhabi-
tants, the appeal to that country in proof of the evil
' Statistical Ilhibtrations, p. (30.
10 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, ['^^^I'
principle of population, vvliicli multiplies mankind
faster than, and beyond, the means of their subsis-
tence, is at once disposed of, especially with those who
regard human institutions so light in the scale by
which the individual shares arc apportioned and dis-
tributed.
But, on so important a topic, practically speaking,
as the population of Ireland, on which a fallacious
principle, dictating a policy equally cruel and absurd,
affects the welfare of millions of human beings, and
even the existence of multitudes, a little prolixity
stands in need of no excuse. I shall therefore attempt
to demolish the very remains of an argument, which,
I think, has been already completely shaken. And
this I shall do by shortly considering the proofs by
which it pretends to be supported ; each of which a
very little attention wdll disengage from the cause they
are advanced to support, converting them, like all
faithless auxiliaries, into its most formidable enemies.
§ III. (1 .) As far as I have been able to gather the opi-
nions of those who speak the most confidently as to an
excessive population in Ireland, and are the loudest
in demanding repressive measures in reference to it,
they advance, in favour of their supposition, the fol-
lowing reasons :
1. The wretchedness and degradation of the people.
2. Their want of employment.
3. The frequent return of scarcities.
4. The prevalence of epidemics.
These symptoms, indeed, we are instructed to be-
lieve, constitute every where the leading ones in the
^ III.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 11
diagnosis of the inveterate, hereditary disease of
the human family^ a pletliory of numbers ; and clearly
indicate the treatment required ^
But what will become of these proofs^ or rather
of the argument; they are meant to support^ when
it is seen that they existed to at least an equal degree,
when_, according to every possible view of the subject,
Ireland suffered from a contrary extreme, namely,
from a paucity of people? In showing that such was
the case, a vast body of evidence is at hand, sufficient,
indeed, to swell this inquiry into ten times its present
size. I shall, however, limit myself to one or two
authorities on each point, and refer those Avho may
be dissatisfied with them, to the entire history of that
country, which is, unhappily, almost exclusively made
up of them.
Commencing with the first period of the preceding
table, viz. 1672, when the population was calculated
at little above a million, or, as since corrected, amount-
ing to about 1,320,000; none, I think, will care to assert
that Ireland was then, at any rate, overpeopled, either
in reference to its fertility or the population of sur-
rounding nations. With a soil of surpassing fertility,
and only about forty individuals on a square mile,
the idea of excessive numbers would have been a
farce ; it was a farce, however, which never entered
into any one's head in those days. But the wretched-
ness of the inhabitants was more conspicuous then,
when there was not a fifth of their present number,
than it is even at present. In proof of tliis, I ap-
peal to the authority of one who had, probably, better
' ^lalihus, EssLiy en Population, book i. c. 2.
12 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [§^^1'-
means of forming an accurate judgment on the sub-
ject, and greater abilities in avaib'ng himself of them,
than most of those numerous writers who have since
adverted to it, I mean Sir William Petty. For a
description of the abject condition of the country at
that period, I refer to his entire works, especially his
" Anatomy of Ireland," where its situation is minutely
described ; and in giving a few quotations from him,
I cannot but remark that the condition of the bulk
of the inhabitants, to have made so strong an im-
pression upon him, when that of the same class in all
countries was so wretchedly inferior to what it is at
present, must have been miserable in the extreme.
The houses of the commonalty of a country are
always amongst the most obvious criteria of their
condition, and these he thus describes: *'^ lamentable
sties ^;" ^'wretched cabins V ^^such as themselves
could make in three or four days^;" not worth live
shillings the building"*, — the filth and stenches of
which he fully explains ^, and which may be imagined
without quoting him. So that their habitations had
not much improved since the time of Edmund Spenser^
who calls them " sties rather than houses, which were
the chiefest cause of the farmer's so beastly manner of
life and savage condition, lying and living together with
his beast^ in one house, in one room, in one bed, that
is clean straw, or rather a foul dunghill ^." But to
return to Sir William : the proportion of such houses
as these, if they may be so called, he thus gives :
"160,000," says he, *'out of the 200,000 houses of
* Petty, Polit. Anat. of Ireland; Tracts, p. 10.
' Ibid. p. 327. " Ibid. p. 351. ' Ibid. p. 351. * Ibid. p. 354.
'^ Spenser, View of Ireland; Works, vol. vi. p- 134.
^ III.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 13
Ireland, are wretched cabins, without chimney, win-
dow, or door shut, even worse than those of the
savages of America ^" As to their houses, there-
fore, at that period, they were certainly no better
than they are now, that ^^ driving," or "clearing"
landlords think they can only be purified by fire and
destruction. As to building them fresh ones, that
they never dream of; contrary to the practice of almost
all other countries under the sun, the Irish cultivator
has almost universally to provide house and buildings^ ;
the proprietor can, therefore, destroy them at plea-
sure, and without detriment to himself.
Their food at this period, it is hardly necessary to
state, corresponded in wretchedness with their dwell-
ings. We have it on the same authority, that it
consisted of " cakes, whereof a penny serves a week
for each ; potatoes from August till May : mussels,
cockles, and oysters, near the sea : eggs and butter,
made very rancid by keeping in bogs. As for flesh,
they seldom eat it^." In a word, the "vice du pays,"
to use an expression of Mr. Malthus's old Swiss friend,
then existed in full vigour; "they can content them-
selves," says Petty, ^^ with potatoes ^"
Half a century afterwards, when the population of
Ireland, though increased, was still very thin, being,
at the most, little above seventy on the square mile,
we learn that the wretchedness of the people was but
little abated, its cause not having been removed. We
still find them living miserably, in their cabins % and
' Petty, Polit. Anat. of Ireland ; Tracts, p. 379.
' Wakefield's Ireland. Rt. Hon. C.Grant's Speech, 22 April, 1822.
' Petty, Anat. of Ireland; Tracts, p. 355. ' Ibid. p. 366.
^ Prior's List of the Absentees, p. 91.
14 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [§iJI«
ruany subsisting in a state of actual beggary. Our
*^^ common people/' says Dobhs^ a friend of Arch-
bishop Boulter, and certainly the best versed in the
general condition of Ireland^ of any man of his day,
^^ our common people are very poorly clothed, go
barelegged half the year, and very rarely taste of that
flesh meat, with which we so much abound ; but are
pinched in every article of life\" I refer to Arch-
bishop Boulter's letters for a full account of the dis-
tresses of the Irish people at this period ; and will
content myself with a general description of them
in the words of one more competent witness. Swift.
'' Whatever stranger took a journey amongst us,"
says he, ^* would be apt to think himself travelling
in Lapland or Iceland, rather than a country so fa-
voured by nature as ours, both in fruitfulness of soil
and temperature of climate. The miserable dress,
and diet, and dwelling of the people ; the general
desolation in most parts of the kingdom; the old
seats of the nobility and gentry in ruins, and no new
ones in their stead ; the families of the farmers, Avho
pay great rents, living in filth and nastiness, upon
butter-milk and potatoes, without a shoe or stocking
to their feet, or a house so convenient as an English
hog-stie to receive them'^;" these, he says, "are
the comfortable sights which await an absentee, who
may be induced to travel for once amongst them, to
learn their language ;" or, as at present, to make a
book, and talk patriotically, on his return.
The description may be brought doAvn to a later
' List of Absentees, p. 32.
* Swift, Short View of the State of Ireland; Works, vol. vi.
pp. 157, 158.
§ Iir.] AND TIIRIR REMEDIES. 15
period by-and-bye ; in tbe mean time, I would ask
wliether this state of things was then owing to
redundant and excessive numbers, in relation to the
means of subsistence which nature had provided ?
(2.) Secondly : as to the numbers at present out of
employment. This seems a main argument now-a-days_,
in proof of a redundant population in Ireland, and,
indeed, throughout the whole empire, if not every
where else^ as far as I understand our anti-popula-
tionists. But a more absurd one, when urged dis-
tinctly from all other considerations, as it usually is,
cannot well be imagined, or one which would, if true^
be more destructive of the whole social system. How
can it be imagined that, if the labours of five millions
of human beings are necessary to each other, the
labours of ten millions should be otherwise ? I have
elsewhere shown, from the very nature of things and
the experience of mankind, they would become, in
the latter case, in a higher degree mutually essential.
To appeal to the difficulty of subsisting the larger
number, vacates the foundation of the present argu-
ment,— only, however, to place it on grounds quite as
untenable, as has been already seen, and will be still
further proved.
But, to take no exceptions against the argument,
as it is put, let us examine how it will prove the pre-
sent evils of Ireland, in this respect, to proceed from
redundant numbers.
In the former of the periods previously adverted to,
Sir William Petty assures us that the people of
Ireland are not oiu-jifth employed M Elsewhere, he
' Petty, Polit. Anat. of Ii-claiid ; Tracts, p. 36G.
16 IRELAND ; ITS EVILS, [§ HI.
says_, those who were employed were very partially
so. Bad as the state of Ireland now confessedly is
in this respect^ still it may be asked, do only about
thirteen hundred thousand persons depend upon
labour, and near five millions and a half eat the
bread of total idleness ? The late census is a suffi-
cient answer to this question. Just in proportion
as this ratio is altered for the better, just so much
has the increase of the population of Ireland en-
couraged the better demand for labour amongst its
mhabitants.
Nor are we to run away with the idea that a pau-
city of people is favourable to the manufacturing
interests of a country. Dobbs, a century ago, said,
" Our weavers are starving for want of employment ^ :''
they could not then have been too thick upon the
ground, for the population of Ulster was not a fourth
of what it is at present. Half a century afterwards,
the inhabitants not being estimated at half their pre-
sent number, though corn was then abundant, the
manufacturers were so totally unemployed, as not to
be able to purchase it, and thousands of them were
supported by the liberality of the public. The far-
mers, in equal distress, were in many places unable to
pay their rents, and were every where involved in
difficulties I
Perhaps the inadequate remuneration of labour
ought in fairness to have been added to the argument
I am opposing. That this evil existed in the former
periods alluded to, in a still greater degree, even than
' Prior, List of Absentees, p. 68.
^ Wakefield's Account, &c., vol. ii. p. 10.
§ III.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 17
it does at present, I will not insult the reader's intel-
ligence by further proving. The preceding statements
render this conclusion inevitable, and the fact is re-
corded in every authentic account of Ireland which I
have ever opened.
I cannot, however, dismiss this part of the inquiry
without noticing the unfairness with which Ireland,
in all possible respects^ has been treated by our
modern economists. It is the misfortune of the Irish
not to be able to aiford themselves any thing more
palatable than potatoes ; this is charged upon them
as an evidence of their voluntary barbarism : they
cannot obtain labour_, (for reasons which will be pre-
sently pointed out,) — this is to brand them with the
crime of idleness. It is false ! In our harvest fields,
or before our furnaces ; in the bowels of the earth,
or on the loftiest buildings, wherever labour can be
obtained, no matter how dangerous or severe, —
there are the Irish. The same is precisely the
fact across the Atlantic ; and yet their misery, ac-
cording to many, is attributable to their indolence.
" ' Ye are idle, ye are idle,' answered Pharaoh to the
Israelites, when they complained to his majesty that
they were forced to make bricks without straw \"
The writers^ however, to whom I have alluded, made
no charges so absurdly false. Sir William Petty
attributed their " lazing, to want of employment and
encouragement to work^:" and we still find them,
on the authority of official reports, when idle, idle
' Swift, Short View of Ireland ; Works, vol. vi. p. 160. See
also vol. iii. p. 414.
' Petty, Polit. Anat. of Ireland ; Tracts, p. 36f).
C
18 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [§ III.
only from necessity ; being " extremely anxious for
employment, and as grateful for it^"
(3.) Next, as to the scarcities in Ireland being a
proof of superfluous numbers. We must deal with this
precisely as with the former arguments. We know
it as a fact, that these not only returned far more
frequently in former times, when the population was
extremely scanty, but that they continued much
longer than they do at present. To commence as
before, with the first period mentioned in the table :
we learn, on the authority of Sir William Temple,
that, *^ notwithstanding the great fertility of that
island, years of scarcity amounting to famine fre-
quently occurred^." According to Mr. Newenham,
between the years 1641 and 1652, flour had risen
above four hundred per cent^ Indeed the general
parsimony and want in which the Irish then subsisted,
we should take to be a perpetual dearth ; their con-
dition, it is true, fluctuated like that of all other
people, whatever be the size of their territory, what-
ever the number of the inhabitants. But, just to
convince the reader that these recurring periods of
scarcity are not peculiar to the present times, but that
they were much severer in Ireland, as I have already
shown to have been the case in all other countries'*,
when the population was the scantiest, I will quote
one author only, from the many that dwell upon this
' Report on the State of Ireland, part iv. p. 619. Evidence
before the Lords, p. 428 — " They are the most anxious people in
the world to get labour."
^ Sir William Temple, Works, vol. iii. p. 7.
^ Newenham, Statistical Inquiry, &c. p. 8.
* Vide Treatise on the Law of Population, about to be pub-
lished, book ii. ch. 5.
§ in,] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 19
point, and one of such a character as, I trust, will
fully satisfy hirn upon it. Referring to the popula-
tion of Ireland a century ago, and to the entire letters
of the Lord Primate and Justice, Archbishop Boulter,
for a full description of its actual condition at that
period, I shall make but one or two extracts from
him at present. " If our crop fails," says the Arch-
bishop, " or yields indifferently, our poor have not
money to buy bread. This was the case in 1725,
and last year ; and_, without a prodigious crop, will
be more so this year. When I went my visitation
last year, barley, in some inland places, sold at six
shiUings the bushel, to make bread of; and oatmeal,
the bread of the north, sold for twice or thrice its
usual price. We met all the roads full of whole
families that had left their homes to beg abroad, since
their neighbours had nothing to relieve them with.
And as the winter subsistence of the poor is chiefly
potatoes, this scarcity drove the poor to begin with
their potatoes before they were full grown, so that
they have lost half the benefit of them, and have
spent their stock two months sooner than usual ; and
oatmeal is, at this distance from harvest, in many
parts of the kingdom, three times the customary
price : so that this summer will be more fatal to
us than the last, when, I fear, many hundreds
PERISHED OF FAMINE M" We find, by a subsequent
letter of the same writer, that the calamity still con-
tinued, so he states, under date May, 1728 ^ Nay,
after another barvest, namely, in the November fol-
' Archbishop Boulter's Letters, vol. i p. '222.
• Ibid. vol. i. p. 241.
C 2
20 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [§ J 1 1.
lowing, he thus writes to the Duke of Newcastle :
" I am sorry I am ohliged to give your Grace so
melancholy an account of the state of this kingdom
as I shall in this letter, but I thought it my duty to
let his Majesty know our condition." He then de-
scribes the dearness of provisions, and the universal
distress which prevailed, and adds further informa-
tion, to which I shall hereafter advert. In one word,
such was the state of Ireland, that he represents the
people as ^'^ suffering little less than a famine every
other year^" It is almost unnecessary for me to
remark, that, under these emergencies, general sub-
scriptions were resorted to^, and issues of the public
money made from time to time, as on a late occasion.
In dwelling on the condition of Ireland a century
ago, I have not selected that period as the only one
suitable to my argument: the whole of its past history
is illustrative of it. As to dearths and famines being
proof of an over-population, the supposition is equally
absurd when apphed to Ireland, as it would be in
reference to all other countries. The calamities just
mentioned were, as already remarked, no strange
events in the past history of the island, nor did they
cease with those memorable years. As soon after-
wards as the years 1740 and 1741, the horrors of
scarcity again returned, and thousands of the poor
people are said to have perished through absolute
want^ There were then, however, at least fifty acres
of land to each family throughout the whole island,
supposing every soul had been an agriculturist.
* Archbishop Boulter's Letters, vol. i. p. 241. ^ Ibid.
' Commercial Restraints, p. 47. Smith's Kerry, p. 77.
^ ill.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 21
Again, in 1757, a period of great misery must have
ensued ; the lord-lieutenant obtaining the king's
letter, dated March 31, 1757, for £20,000, to be
expended in such manner as was most likely to re-
lieve the suffering peopled Again, in 1765, the crop
of potatoes failed throughout the whole country ; so
also had that of the spring corn, and the price of grain
became so high that the most alarming consequences
followed, the people being every where reduced to a
state of the utmost distress. The following year the
suffering so increased, that money was issued from
the treasury to purchase grain ^ In 1770 and 1771,
scarcity and high prices again returned, and produced
most distressing consequences ^ At this period there
were more than forty acres of land to every fiimily in
the country.
Having thus brought the argument down to within
about half a century of the present time, and exa-
mined the previous period of about an equal duration,
I shall now challenge those who resolve the scarcities
of Ireland into a redundant population, to take it up
from thence, and continue it to the present time: I will
give them all the advantage of the calamities which
the general rebellion occasioned, and even those which
the spread and increase of absenteeism inflicts, and still
abide by the result. We have seen, in less than half
a century in the former period, eleven years of what
such would, if it suited their argument, denominate
famine ; the highest population little exceeding two
millions and an half: let them show us, from thence
' Cornmcrcial Restraints, p. GO.
• Ibid. p. 76, 77. Wakefield, vol. ii. p. 10.
' Ibid.
22 IRELAND; ITS EVILS^ [§ lU.
to this time, when the inhabitants have accumulated
to nearly seven millions_, anything approaching to
this state of things, and I will concede that they
understand the principle of population and its effects
better than Providence. But, with the " oracular
solemnity of the raven of the tribe," they still por-
tentously repeat, '^Population! population!" As to
the modern specific, deportation, now the grand
scheme of our modern theorists, to that the people
resorted themselves, and in numbers which awakened
the strongest regrets for his country in the patriotic
prelate already quoted, and many others in those
days. In this reference, however, I am forestalling
a future branch of my argument. But it is a fact
that may be repeated, while the cry of emigration
is ringing in our ears, that a still greater number of
that unhappy people in proportion to the entire popu-
lation, had then to abandon their ancient homes, and
seek an uncertain subsistence in distant climes and
countries, than it is proposed to send on that errand
at present. So redundant have they always been in
every period of their history !
(4.) And lastly, as to the frequent recurrence of epi-
demics. " The probability and fatality of these," it
is declared, ^'^ are rendered considerably greater, as a
population increases, nearly to the utmost limits of
food*:" limits, however, which no nation upon earth
ever approached, and no man upon earth ever calcu-
lated : to attempt it even, is much more likely to
expose the limits of a man's understanding than those
of the Divine Benevolence. It has been shown that,
' Malthus, p. 18, 4to.
§ 11 I.J AND THEIR REMEDIES. 23
as it respects the world at large, epidemics have
diminished greatly in frequency and fatality as
numbers have increased ; nor is Ireland, notwith-
standing the present appeal, an exception. Unhap-
pily circumstanced as that country is, still none of
its sufferings can be dragged up as unwilling wit-
nesses against its population, and this least of any.
Again commencing with the first period of the table,
the following brief account, in which much is neces-
sarily omitted, will show whether the epidemics of
Ireland can be attributed to its large population.
Sir William Temple, who lived in that period, in-
forms us, that " hundreds of thousands of the popu-
lation of Ireland were periodically swept off by the
plague^;" meaning, as it is believed, that epidemical
fever, which we learn, from the best medical authority,
was common to the country during the seventeenth
century ^ But to particularise some of these, which
we are enabled to do, notwithstanding the information
on such subjects is, as it respects Ireland, especially at
these periods, confessedly scanty. In 1684, a very
severe epidemic occurred^. Four years afterwards
it again made its appearance^. About the year 1708
a similar calamity was again general ; and it returned
after a much shorter interval than before, and raged
in the years 1718, 1719, 1720, and 1721 ; for it is a
lamentable fact, that the fevers of Ireland, especially
those of the earlier periods alluded to, seldom sub-
' Temple, Works, vol. iii. p. 7,
'^ Dr. l<oate, Nat. Hist, of Ireland; quoted in Drs. Baker and
Cheyne, vol i. p. 2.
^ Webster on Epidemics, vol. i. p. 353.
■* Dr. Short, Hist, of Air and Seasons, vol. i. p. '26S.
24 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [^ III.
sided in less than three or four years ; some, indeed,
suppose that they were never wholly eradicated. Then
again, from 1728 to 1732, there was a fever of five
years' continuance experienced, after an intermission
of seven years only. The fever returned again after
a lapse of eight years, and continued, indeed, a much
shorter time than before ; but it more than compen-
sated, in the eyes of our modern philosophers, for the
shortness of its duration, by the " clearance" it made
of the " redundant numbers." In this dreadful visita-
tion. Dr. Rutty, the accurate historian of the weather,
health, &c. of Ireland, says, one-fifth part of the people
perished. A lower estimate, and indeed the lowest,
computes the victims at this dreadful period at 80,000!
Dr. Short says, it was little short of the plague in fa-
tality*. Now at this period there were probably fewer
than seventy inhabitants on every square mile, in one
of the most fertile countries in the world : will then
any of our anti-populationists dare to attribute this
calamity to the laws of population and Providence ?
On the contrary, it fell the heaviest where the inhabi-
tants were the thinnest; that is, in the province of Con«
naught; and in Gal way in that province, the thinnest
inhabited county in the country ^. Since Dr. Rutty's
time, I am not aware that there have been any histo-
rians of the health of Ireland, till Drs. Baker and
Cheyne appeared, whose able work on the late fever
there has recently been given to the public. Nor does
the chasm concern the argument: it has been already
shown, that, to whatever cause these calamities have
' Dr. Short, Hist, of Air and Seasons, vol. ii. p. 268.
* Drs. Baker and Cheyne, vol. i. p. 6. Or. Short, vol. ii. p. 268.
§ III.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 25
to be assigned, it is palpably false to say, as to suit a
special purpose it is now said, that they originate in
excessive numbers.
In fine, all those sufferings which the prevailing
theory pronounces as necessarily flowing from an
excessive population, and as forming the certain evi-
dence of such being the case, not only existed, but
existed in a higher degree, when the inhabitants were
wholly inadequate to possess or cultivate a quarter of
the soil^ than they do at the present moment. To
these conclusive facts the momentary attention of the
" Emigration Committee," its chairman and members,
as well as its chosen evidences, one and all, is respect-
fully invited. That the opinion should be correct
which attributes the ancient abuses of Ireland, and its
consequent misery to its dense population, were every
political economist in the empire to preach such a doc-
trine, and every minister of state to act upon it, is palpa-
bly impossible, unless we are to believe that effects may
precede their causes a century or two. " The march
of intellect" has, however, almost arrived at this point,
and indeed, in this instance, is already there.
(5.) It forms, indeed, a most singular feature of
the present argument, not only that the whole train
of evils which have long afflicted Ireland, now igno-
rantly attributed to her overflowing numbers, existed
long before the alleged cause had any being ; but
that persons fully as competent to observe and decide
on the subject, as any of those Avho now dogmatise
upon it, clearly pointing out the whole of them, un-
hesitatingly attributed them to a diametrically oppo-
site reason, namely, to the fewness of the people.
26 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, K^^i-
Amongst these were Sir William Temple*, Lord Cla-
rendon^, Dean Swift, Sir William Petty, &c.; the num-
ber of such authorities it would be far more easy largely
to increase, than to add much to their weight. From
the latter only I shall quote a single passage, referring,
for a comment upon it, to the whole of some of his
principal works. The following passage closes his
Political Anatomy of Ireland : '* The greatest and most
fundamental defect of this kingdom is, the want of
people^ !"
But I shall not pursue the argumentum ad verecun-
diam, which, expunged as it is from the logic of
the modern school, would only injure the cause at-
tempted to be supported. Such an appeal, indeed,
would only prove that he who made it had not ad-
vanced so far in the " march of mind " as to have his
back turned upon the former authorities of this
country, the lights of a by-gone world. Such men
as Bacon, and Locke, and Addison, and Swift might
have twinkled in their day ; but where are they, when
our later authorities blaze upon us ? It is unanimously
admitted that they cannot shine together. I will
therefore again betake myself to a few facts, which
are of a nature too stubborn to be easily silenced.
Before I proceed, it must be observed, that the
author of a popular essay on population, may, perhaps,
be enabled to reconcile the preceding statements to
his system, as announced by himself; inasmuch as that
system occasionally maintains that its principle na-
* Sir William Temple, Works, vol. iii. p. 7.
" Lord Clarendon, Letters, vol. ii, p. Is.
^ Sir William Petty, Anatomy of Ireland ; Tracts, p. 388.
§lll.j AND THEIR REMEDIES. 27
turally produces the evils in question, in every stage
of human increase^ '^from the very commencement of
society :" repeating, in every possible variety of phrase,
that there is ^'a constant tendency, in all animated life,
to increase beyond the means of nourishment prepared
for it^ ;" and that, as it respects human beings es-
pecially, the difference betwixt the ratios of their
increase and that of their food is of the most appal-
ling kind. His system, therefore, is comprehensive
enough to admit all the evils which we have proved
to exist in Ireland, whatever might be the state of its
population ; but we shall examine whether his postu-
lata, the geometric and arithmetic ratios of increase,
be true, as it regards that country, or whether they
exhibit the slightest ''^ tendency" to become so. And
surely there has seldom been an arena upon earth, on
which his theory could have had a better chance : so
many evils crowd upon that country, from so many
different quarters, that there never has been the least
difficulty in proving the distresses of the people ; and
as their numbers have kept constantly increasing,
nothing was easier than to attribute them to that in-
crease. Were, then_, the general argument pursued at
large elsewhere_, that increasing numbers naturally
occasion increasing prosperity, to have failed in the
instance of Ireland, I certainly should not have aban-
doned the position ; nay, I candidly confess, that I did
expect that this country, owing to causes extraneous
to the principle at issue, would have constituted an
exception to a rule otherwise universal. Encouraged,
however, by the fact of all the seeming difficulties
' Malthus, Essay on Population, p. 2.
28 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [§ ^V.
which have presented themselves during similar inqui-
ries and calculations, having, on due examination, ulti-
mately resolved themselves into arguments in favour
of the principle announced, and some of them of the
strongest kind ; I determined, that even Ireland was
a subject ^* not to be given over, but waited on a
little^" to use an expression of Lord Bacon. With
what success this course has been pursued, especially
in the calculations that conclude these pages, must be
left to the determination of the reader.
§ IV. (1.) Having, I trust, already fully proved that
the distresses of Ireland cannot be charged on the
increase of its population^ I now advance my argument
another and far higher step, by inquiring, whether the
alleged tendency in numbers to increase faster than
food, is not false as it respects that countiy ; or to the
still greater confusion of such a position, whether
there has not been (not to speak of tendencies merely,
but facts) an actual increase of food, far greater than
that of the population, rapidly as, it must be confessed,
it has accumulated ? I shall, of course, limit my in-
quiries, in this stage of the argument, to the surjDlus
quantities of food raised in different periods, that
being the sole question in reference to the principle
of population ; in subsequently pursuing the subject,
when accounting for the distresses which, nevertheless,
exist in Ireland, I shall not imitate those who absolve
human institutions^, in order to lay the miseries of
mankind at the door of their Eternal Benefactor.
To anticipate an objection that may be made in
' Malthus, Essay, p. 367.
§ IV.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 29
reference to the nature of the general food of the
country at present_, about which so much is said, I
mean the potatoe, let this suffice — the food of the
native Irish was principally^ if not exclusively^ vege-
table^ long before the potatoe was known in Europe.
Nay_, in almost the first glimpses we have of them,
they are represented to us as herbaceous^ 9ror5(pa70j,
for such is the expression of SoHnus. So they con-
tinue to be described by Spenser^ and Hollingshed^,
and Camden : the latter says^ '' as for their meats,
they feed willingly upon herbs and watercresses, espe-
cially upon mushrooms, shamroots, and roots ^" The
exchange, therefore, of the potatoe, which is all but
bread in nutritiousness^ greatly exceeding it in pala-
tableness, and affording a vaster and far more certain
supply for the plants on which they before principally
subsisted, is one of the many changes brought about
by an enlarging population^ which none, I think, can
deny is of a most gratifying character.
(2.) But not to annoy, unnecessarily, the opposers
of population, by any further allusions to this root,
let us confine our further inquiries to better fare.
And, first, has the production of corn kept pace with
the increase of the population ? In answering this
query, let the number of inhabitants, at each of the
periods referred to, be still kept in recollection, and I
think the selfish and cruel system will receive its
death-blow, in the very scene where it meditates its
triumph.
' State of Ireland, Works, vol. vi. p.
' Hollingshetl, vol. v. p. 185 ; vol. vi, p. 67.
' Camden, Ireland, p. 147, folio, 1637.
30 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [§ IV.
In the seventeenth century, Ireland imported
grain \ But not to dwell on generalities, and to present
the reader with definite views of this important fact.
Referring, first, to a period, when the condition of Ire-
land, which has heen already descrihed, was at least
as deplorable as it can have been at any subsequent
period of tranquillity, namely, a century ago, we shall
find that grain, as well as other of the necessaries of
life, were imported in large quantities. The average
amounts of what Dobbs classes under the heads of
imports for meat and drink, and materials for drinking,
(including medicine) was .£344^550, annually. Some
exports of grain of different kinds, he notices, there
then were, but not such as by any means to balance
the imports. This sum was on the average of eight
years, ending 1726, and consequently exclusive of the
years of scarcity previously alluded to, when we are
informed there were to the amount of from <:£* 100,000
to <£200,000, in grain only, brought in \ But to
present the amount of these imports in ordinary years,
and to contrast them with the exports of Ireland, at
the period of the last census, 1821, and accompanying
the statement with the number of inhabitants at each
period, the following are the important facts: —
' Newenham, Statistical Inquiry, p. 7.
- Dobbs, Essay on the Trade, &c. of Ireland, p. 25.
§ iv.J
AND THEIR REMEDIES.
31
IRELAND'
CORN IMPORTKD,
On an average of 6 years, ending 1725.
Population, 2,300,000 ; or, 71 on a
square mile.
Wheat 27,018
Barley and Malt . . . 7,255
Hulled ditto 677
Flour 4,083
.39,053
Total value of imports') ^.^^ ^or
at prices of 1821. J '
CORN EXPORTKD,
in 1821.
Population, 6,801,827 ; or, 211 on a
square iiiile.
Wheat 1,038,037
Oats 959,474
Barley 78,588
Meal^yheat) . . . . 252,010
Oatmeal 37,150
Total value of exports £2,366,165
Here, then, we see demonstrated the important po-
litical problem, whether population has a natural ten-
dency to increase faster than food, or otherwise. When
Ireland, in 1725, only numbered seventy-one inhabi-
tants on a square mile, she imported grain, in ordi-
nary times, to the amount of twenty or thirty thousand
quarters annually^; but, when her population, on the
same space, became trebled, she not only (of necessity)
subsisted that number, and certainly not worse than
at the former period, but actually exported a surplus
of much above a miUion quarters^!
(3.) Should it be said that Ireland was, in the
former period, a grazing country, in consequence of
the impediments which landlords threw in the way of
tillage, on whose impolicy and cruelty Archbishop
Boulter dwells very feelingly in many of his letters %
' Dobbs, Essay on the Trade, &c. of Ireland, p. 25.
"" Public Accounts. ^ Ibid.
' Boulter, Letters, vol. i. pp. 223, 241, &c.
32
IRELAND ; ITS EVILS,
[5 IV.
till the evil was at length partly remedied by a legis-
lative interference, the consequence of which was a
vast increase of the products in question ; I shall not
argue this point, but betake myself to the produce of
the pasturage of the country, (which, of course, must
have been proportionably checked,) in order to discover
whether there is a tendency in population to exceed
even these means of human subsistence, which con-
fessedly take the largest proportion of surface, and
the best soils to produce them. This second inquiry
I shall determine in precisely the same manner as
before. Ireland certainly exported cattle^ and very
largely, at the former period ; they constituted the
bulk of her returns : has, then, the vast augmentation
in the population^ since that time, diminished, or
rather annihilated, that export, and " absorbed " (to
use the favourite word of the day) the surplus produce
of the country, as it regards this species of human
food? The following facts will best answer that
query : —
IRELAND.
Value of the Produce of Cattle
and Sheep exported on the ave-
rage of Eight Years, ending
1726.
Population, 2,300,000, or 71 on
each Square Mile.
Total average value, ^62.3,177.,
Value of the Produce of Cattle
and Sheep exported in 1821.
Population, 6,801,827, or 211 on
each Square Mile.
Total value, ^3,705,993.*
Dobbs, Essay on the Trade and Improvement of Ireland, p. 17.
* Public Accounts.
§ IV.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 33
The argument might be minutely pursued through
the intervening period, but it is unnecessary : it is
singular enough, however, to observe, that midway
between these two dates (1777), the population having
considerably advanced, there was nearly a balance be-
tween the imports and exports of grain, or, in other
words, Ireland about grew its own bread ^ Since,
then, the population has rather more than doubled,
how has the constant tendency, which our theorists
perpetually assert, been manifested ? By sextupling
the agricultural produce ^.
With such facts as the preceding tables exhibit,
recorded in the statistical annals of the empire, and
which are, and long have been, published to the world,
certainly the fatuity, not to say mendacity, of these
constant appeals to Ireland in proof that popu-
lation naturally multiplies more rapidly than the
means of subsistence, is without parallel. I chal-
lenge any one to add anything in the way of illus-
tration to the broad and glaring absurdity which
such a principle exhibits, as applied to Ireland. Let
our political economists concede to a plain man of
ordinary capacity that sound judgment in human
affairs_, which Archbishop Tillotson claims for such
an one, even on the more mysterious truths of religion
— a judgment which, whether they concede to him or
not, he most certainly possesses ; and let him be told
the foregoing facts regarding Ireland : — that, a century
ago, the population, then being but a little more than
two millions, could not supply itself with grain ; but
' Young, Tour in Ireland, pp. 2, 86.
* Colquhoun; Wealth, Power, and Resources of the Empire,
p. 14, note.
U
34 IRELAND; ITS EVILS^, T. §^V.
that now, with its inhabitants trebled, it is not only
enabled so to do, but to export at least ten millions of
bushels, as well as six times the amount in cattle
(perhaps about thrice as many head), as at the former
period ; — and could he be brought to understand and
believe that population there had advanced more
rapidly than food ; that, if things were suffered to go
on thus, universal distress and ruin must inevitably
ensue, — in a word, that the principle of human increase
operates in that island as an evil ? And what would
it avail, were it told him that the cultivators were, in
the mean time, faring most wretchedly themselves,
and actually suffering for want of sufficient support.
He would instantly rejoin, why then do they not
retain some part of these immense exports, to satisfy
their own necessities ? And, if he were an English
cultivator, he would be the readier to recommend such
a measure. But, that he must, in compliment to the
principle of population, see present suffering and
future starvation awaiting a people, merely on the
score of increasing numbers, while he is vshown that
such increase has actually produced a far larger
measure of superfluous provision, which has to find a
vent elsewhere, in quantities which actually inundate
other markets ; would be rather too much to demand
from a man of common sense. Place such a man on
the committee, and he would think about preventing
the undue emigration of corn, and cattle, and pigs,
rather than promoting that of the people.
If then it be conceded, (and can it be denied ?) that
the evils which now afflict that country cannot pos-
sibly be attributed to a large population, existing as
^IV.] AND THEIR REMEDlf:S. 35
they did, and at least in an equal degree when the
country was notoriously underpeopled ; and if^ further-
more, it be admitted (and I again defy the fact to be
controverted) that the produce of the country has far
more than kept pace with the increase in its inhabi-
tants, till, in point of fact^ it has augmented into an im-
mense superflux which has to be disposed of else-
where, the argument which I oppose is finally settled
as it regards Ireland ; and might here very properly
close. But it is not less the purpose of the work of
which this forms a part, to demolish to its very foun-
dation the false and pernicious theory which now un-
happily prevails, than to substitute another founded
upon truth, and consistent with the principles of justice
and mercy. After having established its certainty as
a law of nature, the next design has been to show that
it has always operated to the advantage and not to
the detriment of the human race, and that the natural
increase of mankind has therefore been the signal,
nay the very means, of their advancement in all that
constitutes human superiority. But though the facts,
and more especially the calculations on which it is
founded, have never yet been submitted to a single
individual during the progress of the work, who has
not instantly acceded to the conclusion as inevitable,
I must confess, that all such have, on recollection as
it were, pointed to the condition of Ireland, as disturb-
ing their otherwise entire acquiescence with the prin-
ciple disclosed : hence, on a matter regarded as so es-
sential to the argument, and especially one which is so
present to the mind of Britons, and so deeply touches
their feelings, it is necessary to be explicit. To me the
D 2
36 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [V^.
situation of Ireland, circumstanced as she is, corro-
borates, rather than confronts, whatever I have ad-
vanced on the law of population throughout. In
pursuing the melancholy subject, though I have wit-
nessed the sufferings of that country often, and me-
ditated upon them more frequently, still I shall state
nothing on my own authority. Those who may
accompany me into the remaining details^ may find
some little novelty in seeing the sufferings of that un-
happy people attributed to other causes than either to
potatoes, or to propagation : causes which I advert to
with unfeigned reluctance, but on which, adverting to
them at all, I shall deliver myself with the utmost
plainness. I am aware of the treatment of those
*♦ ^\'ho truths invidious, to the great, reveal,"
for it is on them, and not, as is now the fashion, upon
defenceless and persecuted poverty that I shall fix the
wrongs of Ireland, aye, and her outrages ; those con-
vulsions at which the nation stands aghast, and
feels ever and anon as a mighty earthquake shaking
the very foundations of the empire, while the voice
of distant thunders is still heard threatening from
the cloud that gathers in the west, where the angry
elements seem in perpetual war.
(4.) But before I proceed to these considerations,
I maintain that Ireland, peculiarly circumstanced as
she is, has nevertheless participated, though in a
humble degree, in the advantages naturally resulting
from increasing numbers. That she does not furnish
a more triumphant argument in favour of the principle
of benevolence, is not chargeable upon the laws of
nature and of God.
§ IV.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 37
We have seen the great increase in the population
of Ireland during the last century ; we proceed then to
inquire_, whether the condition of the people propor-
tionably deteriorated^ which the principle I am oppo-
sing means to imply, if it mean anything ; or, on the
contrary, whether such increase was a benefit to the
community. Let competent witnesses be heard on
this matter, and the dispute be decided accordingly.
'^ Can those who now hear me, deny," said the cele-
brated Mr. Foster to a sufficient number of compe-
tent judges, the representatives of Ireland, ^' that, since
the period of 1782, Ireland has risen in civilization,
in wealth, in manufactures, in a greater proportion,
and with a more rapid progress, than any other country
of Europe ^" Again, Lord Sheffield, the pursuits of
whose life seem to have been almost exclusively di-
rected to subjects of public and national economy
especially relating to this country, says, "the improve-
ment of Ireland is as rapid as any country ever ex-
perienced ^." But, not to multiply authorities on this
point, I shall lastly quote Major Newenham, to whose
researches respecting this subject the public is so
much indebted. Presenting many most important facts
relative to the population and condition of the coun-
try, in a series of Tables, he finally observes upon
them : "They evince, beyond the possibility of a doubt,
a most rapid increase of people in Ireland ; and at the
same time exhibit in a clear light this interesting fact,
that, within these last five-and-twenty years, or there-
about, the food in that country has not been merely
* Speech in the House of Commons, 17 Feb. 1800.
^ Loid Sheffield, Observations on the Trade, &c. of Ireland, p. 6.
38 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [^V.
commensurate with, but has greatly surpassed the rapid
and well-authenticated increase of its population*."
§ V. (1.) Yet notwithstanding these cheering tes-
timonies in favour of the progress of population, it
must be admitted that much suffering and great na-
tional degradation exist in this interesting portion of
the British empire, which, I am not without a painful
apprehension, may have been latterly increased, owing
to their real cause having been aggravated rather than
diminished^ ; while they are still further heightened,
at least rendered more conspicuous, by being contrasted
with the rapid advancement of the other grand divi-
sions of the kingdom.
In fixing upon this cause, I have not far to seek nor
long to deliberate. It has been deeply felt, and power-
fully pointed out, ever since the state of Ireland has
excited the consideration of the empire. One which
every writer of any note, or patriot of any principle or
feeling, on either side the water, who has given attention
to its affairs, has designated the prime curse of the coun-
try ; compared with which every other momentary topic
of declamation has sunk into insignificance: one indeed
which the modern school of political theorists stoutly
denies as an evil, and consequently labours to prevent
the application of that remedy, without which Ireland
will always be pushed to the utmost verge of destitu-
tion, and consequently of endurance. I trust I need
hardly explain that I mean absenteeship.
' Newenham, Statistical Inquiry, &c. p. 197.
* See an account of the increase of absenteeism since 1797, in
Drs. Baker and Cheyne's work, vol. i. p. 12; see likewise the Lords*
Report on the Disturbances in Ireland, p. 207, &c.
§V.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 39
Formerly^ this ancient enemy of Ireland^ or, to
speak more literally, "the cut-purse of the empire/*
concealed its footsteps as much as possible, and when
observed, disguised itself under a number of specious
pretences and apologies. Health ; safety ; education ;
and a variety of other reasons were always forthcom-
ing, amounting, on the whole, to a kind of necessity ;
and necessity, as is well known, can have no law,
whether of duty or gratitude. Now, however, fully
absolved by political economy, and even invested with
peculiar honours, it no longer seeks concealment, but
boldly avows itself; affects the language and assumes
the pretensions of genuine patriotism, and perpetually
stuns you with declamations concerning a country
which it personally deserts, and is constantly pillaging
and oppressing by proxy.
(2.) To estimate the mass of misery which this
evil has occasioned, we must attend to its origin, and
long continuance, as well as to its present extent.
Ireland only shared the fate of England in having
been a conquered country, but it has been more un-
fortunate than the latter in having been frequently
subdued ; — a variety of causes, amongst which the
very evil we are considering may be regarded as one
of the most powerful, though perhaps the least ob-
vious^ having occasioned those frequent insubordina-
tions and rebellions which so disfigure its history.
These have always been quelled and punished ; hence
few generations have elapsed, especially in former
times, without witnessing the confiscations of large
portions of the property of the island. To go no
farther back than Queen Ehzabcth's time : three re-
40 IRELAND; ITS EVILS^ [§V.
bellions during that period were the cause of placing
a great part of the lands of Ireland at the disposal of
the crown. Leland says, more than one half of Ulster
became vested in the queen, "to be disposed of as
most expedient for the interests and security of her
government^" A greater authority, and one con-
nected with the transactions he records, Edmund
Spenser, gives a vastly higher proportion. Of the
9000 ploughlands which Ulster contained, all but 400
or 500 he represents as having escheated to her^. In
Connaught, I understand him to calculate, that at
least five-sixths of the whole were in the same predi-
cament^: and even in Leinster, exceedingly large
tracts, consisting of entii*e counties, were similarly
circumstanced^. As to Munster, at the period he
wrote, it appears very much of it was already in the
hands of her '^undertakers*." Indeed, by the single
attainder and death of the Earl of Desmond, " enor-
mous domains," as large as " the possessions of inde-
pendent princes," fell to her disposal^ besides sundry
other minor forfeitures. In the reign of her suc-
cessor, James I., the greatest and most valuable part
of Ulster again reverted to the crown, in consequence
of the treasonable practices of Tyrone, Tyrconnel,
and others, their adherents'^. During the interreg-
num, confiscations to a far greater extent occurred.
The fluctuation and uncertainty in the landed pro-
perty throughout the island, at the period of the
restoration, may be seen by opening two or three
• Leland, Hist, of Ireland, vol.ii. p. 247,4to.
' Spencer, State of Ireland, Works, vol. vi. p. 176, 12mo.
' Ibid. pp. 179, 180. " Ibid. pp. 183, 184. ' Ibid. pp. 185, 186.
"■ Leland, Hist, of Ireland, vol. ii. p. 288. ' Ibid. vol. ii. p. 424.
§V.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 41
of the first pages in Sir William Petty's " Anatomy
of Ireland." At the revolution, another seizure of very
considerable extent, and it is to be hoped the last,
took place, when upwards of a million acres of land
were forfeited at once : more than half of these, how-
ever, were afterwards restored, as well as, probably,
much of the preceding ones^: much, however, was
permanently withheld from the former possessors, and
bestowed, of course, in many instances, on the retain-
ers of the court for the time being ; almost always,
however, on condition of residence, which many never-
theless contrived to evade, letting their acquisitions
under various tenures to resident cultivators.
The extent of these forfeitures is far from being
exaggerated. Lord Clare says that, of the twelve
millions of acres which the island contains, eleven
and a half underwent confiscation, during the one
century last referred to.
I most distinctly disclaim alluding to these irritating
topics with any other view than that which renders
an appeal to them necessary to prove and illustrate
the important point which I am now about to enforce.
I will even acknowledge that, perhaps, these fluctua-
tions in the landed property of Ireland, consequent
upon her connexion with this country, were not so
frequent and universal as those which were perpe-
tually taking place under the antient Irish custom of
tanistry, as it was called, by which the whole landed
property of the country was constantly changing
hands ^. Even after this custom was abolished, these
' Sir William Petty, Polit. Anat. of Ireland, pp. 1 -4.
'^ See Spenser's Account of [relancl, Works, vol. vi.
42 IRELAND ; ITS EVILS^ [§ V.
extensive forfeitures fell principally upon ancient Eng-
lish proprietors, who were successively dispossessed
several times over; which fully accounts for the other-
wise extraordinary fact, that there are fictitious claims
to property in Ireland to a far greater extent than the
entire area of the country. But, whatever truth there
may be in these remarks, it is wide of my present
purpose to dwell upon them: it only concerns the
argument to state that, had the property in Ireland,
forfeited from time to time, been conferred upon those
who were residents in the country, or likely to remain
so, such spoliations, though inflicting great individual
suffering, would not perhaps have materially impo-
verished it ; but, when they were bestowed upon those
who did not reside in it, upon a mere unregarded en-
gagement that they would do so ; or who, residing
there, were, in consequence of these accessions of
fortune, too often tempted to leave it for an establish-
ment nearer the focus of the empire, or still more
culpable, who were thus enabled to spend their
acquired wealth beyond the boundaries of the British
dominions, — then and thus was it that the evils of ab-
senteeism commenced, and, by the sure and constant
operation of this adequate cause, the impoverishment
of Ireland has been begun and continued, and will
never end till, by some means or other, this crying
injury shall be abated.
(3.) The fatal consequences of absenteeship have
long been forcibly pourtrayed, by a great body of
writers, familiar with the situation and sufferings
of Ireland, a few only of whom will be quoted.
Sir William Petty says, that " a great part of the
§V.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 43
estates_, both real and personal, in Ireland, are owned
by absentees, and such as draw over the profits raised
out of Ireland, refunding nothing: so as Ireland,
exporting more than it imports, doth yet grow poorer
to a paradox ^" In the same page, he attributes the
lamentable want of employment and the idleness of
Ireland to the same fatal cause, absenteeism.
In about half a century afterwards, we find this evil
had not abated Dobbs, as it is believed, published,
under the assumed name of Prior, in 1729, a list of
the absentees, as far as he could collect them, esti-
mating the annual subtraction of wealthy from this
cause, at <£ 627,799 ^ — a prodigious sum at that time,
and for such a country ; the rental of which, it is
supposed, did not then exceed two millions. This esti-
mate is fully confirmed by a very judicious English
writer, of that period. Gee, in his work on the Trade
and Navigation of Great Britain, says, ^' it is thought
near one third part of the rents of the whole (of
Ireland) belong to English noblemen and gentlemen
that dwell here^" I shall give a few extracts from
the former writer, and hope that the first will be par-
ticularly noticed : — " By means of our nobles and
gentry deserting their own country, and spending all
abroad, our people are left without employment, and
are forced to shift to other countries, even to America,
to get a livelihood ^" " 'Tis not to be wondered at
that we should grow poorer every day, under such an
unprofitable issue of money, which all the labour of
' Sir William Petty, Political Anatomy of Ireland, p. 33.
^ Prior, List of Absentees of Ireland, p. 13.
' Gee, Trade and Navy of Great Britain, p. 19.
* List of Absentees, p 23.
44 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [§ V.
the people and produce of the country, with every
acquisition they can make, are not sufficient to
supply \" " This is an evil long complained of."
" There is no country in Europe which produces and
exports so great a quantity of beef, butter, tallow,
hides, and wool as Ireland does ; and yet, our common
people are very poorly clothed, go bare-legged half
the year, and very rarely taste of that fresh meat with
which we so much abound. We pinch ourselves of
every article of life, and export more than we can
well spare, with no other effect or advantage than to
enable our gentlemen and ladies to live more luxu-
riantly abroad." " And they are not content to treat
us thus, but add insult to ill usage : they reproach us
with our poverty, at the same time that they take
away our money '^."
Dean Swift describes the consequences of absen-
teeism. He says it *'^ required those great remittances
which perpetually drained the country ^ :" that it drove
^^ half the farmers and labourers into beggary and ba-
nishment'* ;" in a word, that it was the one great evil
of Ireland — ** Nostra miseria magna es ^."
That this state of things has continued to the pre-
sent day, and I fear increased, admits of little doubt.
The effect of absenteeism is every where obvious to the
eye. '^ So numerous are abandoned edifices in Ire-
land," says a recent intelligent writer on that country,
^^ that they keep alive a train of melancholy ideas in
the mind of the traveller. They who reared these
piles, and filled these rooms with mirth, who gave
' List of Absentees, p. 29. * Ibid. p. 33.
3 Swift, Works, vol. vi. p. 209. " Ibid. p. 180. ' Ibid. 158.
§ v.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 45
plenty and employment to the poor_, are now in their
tombs, and their living successors, dead to patriotism,
dwell in other lands, and leave the home of their
ancestors a wilderness. — Every one must wish such
absentees could be made to reside in the country,
— to enrich it with their fortunes, ornament it with
their taste, improve the morals of the people by their
example, refine them by their politeness, and protect
them by their authority ; then might we hope to see
the laws respected, the rich beloved, and Ireland tran-
quil and happy \" But the scientific agriculturist is
still more struck with the misery occasioned by this
grand evil, than the sentimental traveller. Young
is copious on this subject, and Curwen faithfully de-
scribes, from ocular proof, the '' ruin" it inflicts^; and
as to misery — speaking of an estate belonging to some
absentee, he says, '^ the waters of oblivion can never
wash out the stains which the scenes of woe, wit-
nessed this day, have impressed upon my mind^"
I shall not proceed with these quotations ; but ap-
peal to the many attempts that have been made both
of a public and private kind, as well as the statutes that
have been from time to time passed to repress this
great evil, of the existence of which they form a mass
of public evidence. Much, however, as has been at-
tempted, nothing has been eifectually and permanently
done, and the evil has even gone on increasing, more
especially since the rebellion^ and the legislative union
of the two kingdoms, till the amount of property thus
' Croker, Researches in the South of Ireland, p. 267.
' Curwen, Observations on the State of Ireland, vol. ii. p. 255.
^ Ibid. vol. ii. p. 187.
46 iRELAND ; ITS EVILS, [§ V.
annually abstracted is calculated at «ome millions ^
forming a very onerous tax upon the entire rental and
income of the country. Had England, even, been
doomed to bear such a burthen, she would never have
arisen to her present towering height ; were it now
imposed upon her in an equal degree, it would ulti-
mately reduce her to the condition in which Ireland
is, and in which she must remain till the load is finally
lightened or removed.
(4.) The low and degrading poverty to which Ire-
land is thus reduced, though in itself a great evil, is,
nevertheless, one of the very least which absenteeism
inflicts. And first, as to those which are caused by the
total abandonment of the most important duties. Few,
I think, who are the advocates of the social system,
and especially amongst those who are placed at its
summit, but must be eager to acknowledge, that the
duties it imposes are reciprocal, and that their due
discharge becomes the more important, the more
elevated and commanding the station occupied. What,
then, I would ask, must be the certain consequence,
when those whom civil institutions have placed in the
highest rank, and invested with the most extensive
influence, totally abandon their proper sphere, and
desert their numerous and degraded dependents ? As
to wealth being accumulated or diffused under such
circumstances, the very idea is preposterous. There
are none to give employment to those who, in an
advancing state of society, are liberated from the
lowest drudgeries of life ; none to excite genius, or
reward merit, none to confer dignity and elegance on
» WakefieW, vol.i. p. 290, note.
§ v.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 47
society ; to lead in the march of civilization ; to difFiise
knowledge or dispense charity. That state of society
which has a tendency to separate itself into two classes
only, the rich and the poor, has, from the time of
Bacon downwards, been reprobated by all whose
opinions are deserving of regard ; but that in which
poverty constitutes the sole class, is still more perni-
cious and unnatural. And thus it is wherever absen-
teeism universally prevails ; there wealth shuns the
labour by which it is fed, and the industry by which
it is distinguished : rigorously exacting all its dues,
fancied or real, and returning none to those to whom
they are as truly, though not as legally owing ; carry-
ing off the products of the vintage of nature, even to
the very gleanings, to a far country, and leaving the
refuse to those who cultivate the soil and express the
juice ; muzzHng the mouth of the ox that treadeth
out the corn_, which is fed with the husks, and goaded
to desperation.
(5.) But this abandonment, simply, is not all with
which absenteeism stands charged. It substitutes, for
neglected duties, positive wrongs of the deadliest cha-
racter. Absent in the body, it is indeed ever present
in the spirit of cruelty and oppression. Its very exist-
ence implies a train of evils, which have been for
centuries past the most cruel scourges of the country :
I mean the imderletting system. Amongst these
middlemen, as they are called, there may be, and no
doubt are, men of high honour and humanity ; but
such exceptions render the cruelty and extortion of
the entire class the more conspicuous. The sacred
bond which ought to unite the superior and the in-
48 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [§ V.
ferior, the landlord and the tenant, is broken : mere
mercenary connexions are all that remain^ a thousand
of which may be dissolved at once without costing a
single thought. This is a system of which the mid-
dlemen^ nay, very often many subordinate ranks of
these carnivoree, are the ministers^, whose sole possible
motive is present gain, and whose conduct corre-
sponds with it. The experimental labours of this class
are highly beneficial to the whole body of landed pro-
prietors ; they can calculate to a nicety how much and
how long a little cultivator can endure ; and know
the precise period when it is best to " drive him.'*
They thus not only act for the absentee^ but are a
sort of pioneers for the rest of the landlords, and by
constantly exercising their instruments of devastation,
have certainly cleared the way for those enormously
high rents, which, to the great discredit of too many of
the proprietors, are extorted from the suffering peasan-
try of Ireland^ Here too is the principal cause of those
* "Undertakersinured to tyranny and extortion." (Bishop Wood-
ward, Argument, &c. p. 17.) — See Reports on the State oflreland,
pp. 38, 590, &c.
* I cannot better preface a few subjoined proofs of this asser-
tion, than in the words of a dignitary of the Church of Ireland,
in a little work, entitled " Lachrymae Hibernicae." Speaking of the
causes of the wretched poverty of Ireland, he thus expresses him-
self: "We know here we touch a tender subject. We have ob-
served how the Irish landlords started up in anger, in the house of
commons, when it was hinted that their lands were let at too high a
rate, and, of course, unless his insignificance secures him, the writer
expects to meet his share of their reproach. Notwithstanding, he
says, and he has the opinion of some of the ablest men of the nation
to confirm it, that the lands of Ireland are, generally speaking, let
at an exorbitant over-va^ue." — (Grievances of Ireland, p. 8.)
As this evil, too, is attributed to the " principle of population,*'
which, in every attitude it assumes, and every dogma it delivers, is
still the avowed enemy of the mass of mankind ; let the following
proofs, which might be multiplied to any extent, show that the in-
§V.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 49
minute and temporary lettings, so injurious to the
soil^ and for which such incredibly large sums are
exacted ^ ; and which contribute to keep so great a
number of the peasantry in constant poverty and
fluctuation. To the same source is to be attributed,
I am persuaded^ those exactions, cruelties, and
'^ drivings," to which that unhappy race are constantly
subjected. The infection of cruel selfishness is to be
traced to absenteeism ; and once introduced, such,
alas ! is our nature, wherever interest is concerned,
we are predisposed to take the contagion, which thus
spreads like a leprosy through a whole country, and
tills it with suffering, and sorrow, and destitution.
crease of the inhabitants simply, as increasing the competition for
land, has little to do with the matter.
Edmund Spenser says, " The landlords there most shamefully
rack their tenants." — (State of Ireland, Works, vol. vi. p. 33.)
Dean Swift, " Rents, squeezed out of the very blood, and
vitals, and clothes, and dwellings of the tenants, who live worse
than English beggars." — (View of the State of Ireland, Works,
vol vi. p. 159.)
Archbishop Boulter, " Here the tenant, 1 fear, has hardly ever
more than one third for his share, and too often but a fourth or
a fifth part." — (Letters, vol, i. p. 292.) Hear this, yc great English
monopolizing tenants, who tell your landlords none but a large
farmer can pay them good rents !
Right Honourable John Fitzgibbon, At. -Gen. " The peasantry are
ground down to powder by enormous rents." — (Speech, 1787.)
" Exorbitant rents." — (Gordon's Hist, of Ireland, vol. ii. p. 241.)
" Exorbitant rents." — (Newenham's Inquiry, &c. p. 15.)
" Exorbitant rents." — (Argument for the Support of the I^oor;
Dr. Woodward, p. 15.)
" Exorbitant rents." — (Curwen, Observations on the State of
Ireland, vol. ii. 32.)
" Exorbitant rents." — (First Report on the State of Ireland,
1825, p 38.) See pp. 59, 307, 413, 414, 638, &c. &c.
" It is an undoubted fact that, as landlords, they exact more
from their tenants, than the same class of men in any other coun-
try."— (Wakefield, Account of Ireland, vol. ii. p. 795.)
^ Conacres, which are generally let up to " ten guineas an acre."
— Report of the Select Committee on the State of Ireland, i. p. 50 ;
ii. p. 414; iv. p. 638, ^c.
E
50 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [§ V,
(6.) That the extreme poverty thus introduced, with
its unhappy associate, idleness, are invariably con-
nected with ignorance, and too often with crime, needs
little proof. I would have added to these melancholy
consequences, those commotions which have so fre-
quently agitated the country, with the guilt of which,
at least negatively, absenteeism stands chargeable ;
only that I shall probably again touch upon this point
hereafter.
(7.) But, to pass over many of the minor evils of ab-
senteeism unnoticed, let us, lastly, show its character in
a still more awful point of view — namely, its heartless
conduct in times of general sickness and distress, which
are but too common in Ireland, and, in no slight
degree, attributable to this, its unnatural desertion ^
Such was, doubtless, the case in the late dreadful fever
in Ireland. Its historians record, amongst other cir-
cumstances which occasioned it, '^ the high price of
land, artificially created by land-jobbers," (the middle
people previously alluded to, the accomplices of ab-
senteeism,) '^'and the vast income drawn from the
country by absentees, the deadliest foes of Ire-
land. These are causes, amongst many others,
which have reduced countless numbers to want, and
converted a considerable part of our population into
mendicants *.'* Another medical report in the same
work says, " The great proprietors of extensive estates
in the neighbourhood and in every part of the country
are absentees, with the exception of one or two.
They draw out of this remote and impoverished
' Drs. Baker and Cheyne, Account of the Fever in Ireland, vol. ii.
pp. 98. 125. • Ibid. vol. ii. p. 405.
§V.J AND THEIR REMEDIES. 51
country" (round Tralee) '^ about £160,000 a year, at
a rough calculation ; of which not one shilling is
spent in it — June illce lachrymce^ '"' Surely this physi-
cian can never have read Professor Macculloch ! But
the subject, alas ! is too serious to blend up with a
laugh at political economy. These desertions neces-
sarily caused that want of employment^, that poverty^,
and that despondency and dejection of mind*, which
are declared to have been the predisposing causes of
the infection ; the last of which rendered it, it is said,
almost invariably fataP. The resident gentry, indeed,
covered themselves with immortal honour on the
trying occasion^: they very generally gave " employ-
ment as far as possible to all the poor that applied
for it, and fed multitudes who must otherwise have
perished'^;" but these, alas ! were few^, and often at
great distances^, and in that case the suffering was
greatly heightened ^^ Thus, it appears, that absenteeism
was often the direct cause of the calamity, which it
always aggravated.
Leaving, then, wholly out of our consideration the
more apparent and constantly operating evils of this
pest of Ireland ; that mass of poverty which is created,
that distress which is unrelieved ; that idleness which
is unemployed ; that ignorance which is uninstructed ;
together with all the crime and suffering from which
' Drs. Baker and Cheyne, Account of the Fever in Ireland, vol. ii.
p. 168.
' Ibid. vol. i. p. 99 ; vol. ii. pp. 17, 38, 41, 140, 145, 158, 165.
^ Ibid,
* Ibid. vol. ii. pp. 38, 65, 71, 79, 87, 93, 165, &c. &c.
^ Ibid. vol. ii. pp. 98, 125. ^ Ibid. vol. ii. pp. 76, 89, 95, 157.
' Ibid. vol. ii. p. 100. » Ibid, vol.ii. pp. 76, 125, 138.
' Ibid. vol. i. 338. '" Ibid. vol. ii. p. 35.
E 2
52 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [^ V.
such a state of things is inseparable ; what is, lastly,
its conduct in regard to its victims in the extremity
of nature, when disease is added to poverty, multiplying
its sorrows in a ratio of which wealth can have no
adequate conception ? when the desertion_, as it respects
such suftcrers, is irreparable and final ? when those
last duties, which the humane heart will not allow it-
self to perform by proxy, are not performed at all ?
In that awful season, from every quarter of Ireland,
there came from the death-bed — bed, did I say !
from the scanty straw which spread the cold ground
in many a temporary shed^ ; in such as which_, were
' " A volume might be filled with instances, in proof of the dis-
tress occasioned by this visitation of fever, amongst a people already
exhausted by the privations consequent on want of employment,
and scarcity of food. — Fever huts : these were wretched structures of
mud or stone, notexceeding four or fivefeet in height, erected at the
road sides, or in the corners of fields, for the purpose of receiving
persons attacked with fever, either members of a family, removed there
for the purpose of preventing an extension of sickness, or wretched
wanderers in search of food and employment, thus compelled to
struggle with a formidable disease on the damp ground, with little
covering but the miserable clothing worn by day, and scarcely pro-
tected from the inclemency of the weather by the shed of straw or
boughs, which formed the roof of this wretched habitation." — (Drs.
Baker and Cheyne, vol. i. pp.63, 64.)
Dr. O'Leary says, in his report inserted in the above work,
" Three or four patients have literally died in the streets, or by
the side of the ditches, for many were obliged to sleep in the fields.
Fever huts were erected on the passage to the church, either on or
near all the public roads, and on the fair field. I have gone into a
hut, where, owing to the lowness of the entrance, I could only feel
the pulse of the four inmates, a father and three children of the
name of Staunton. There were also two grown-up daughters, who
were obliged to remain several nights in the open air, not having
room in the hut till the father died ; when the stronger of the two
girls forced herself into his place. On the road leading to Cork,
within a mile of this town, I visited a woman of the name of Vaughan,
labouring under typhus ; on her left lay a child very ill, at the foot
of the bed another child, just able to crawl about, and on her right
the corpse of a third child, who had died two days previously, and
which the unhappy mother could not get removed." — {Ibid. vol. i.
I v.]
AND THEIR REMEDIES. 53
the pampered beast of many a prond absentee put for
a single night, he would probaljly make the air ring
p, 65.) Numbers of cases succeed, quite of as distressing a kind.
1 shall only further quote another from Mr. Nolan: " Ellen Fagan,
a young womem, whose husband was obliged, in order to seek em-
ployment, to leave her almost destitute, in a miserable cabin, with
three children — caught the disease," in having, poor as she was her-
self, administered charity to another ; " and from the terror and alarm
created in the neighbourhood, was with her three children deserted,
except that some persons left a litile water and milk at the window
for the children, one about four, the other three years old, the third
an infant at her breast. In this way she continued for a week, when
a neighbour heard of her distress, and sent her a loaf of bread,
which was left in the window. Four days after this he grew uneasy
about her, and one night he prepared some tea and bread, and
taking a female servant with him, set oif to her relief. When he
arrived, the following scene presented itself: in the window lay the
loaf where it had been deposited four days previously; in one cor-
ner of the cabin, on a little straw, without covering of any kind,
lay the wretched mother actually dying ; her infant dead by her
side for want of that sustenance she had not to give ; on the floor
lay two children, to appearance dying also of cold or hunger ; at
first they refused to take anything, and he had to force a little liquid
down their throats ; in a short time they revived, and with the
cautious administration of food, they recovered the effects of their
suffering. The woman expired before the visitor left the house,
who, I am happy to add, did not suffer from his humanity," (vol. i.
p. 66.) I am irresistibly impelled to bring Mr. Malthus's doctrines
to the touchstone of this awful scene. In order to support a
wretched system of population, inevitably connected with, and
indeed productive of, vice and suffering, matrimony, which Chris-
tianity declares "honourable in all," and his church pronounces
necessary as well as " holy," is to be degraded into a selfish gra-
tification, which, were it true, this uncovering of the nakedness of
our common parent, Nature, exhibits a far greater indecency than it
exposes. But further ; to such who have not those " clear pros-
pects" which not one poor man in a thousand has, it is denounced
as *' a clearly immoral act '," this partial morality, therefore, cuts
him oflF from all that solace and assistance so necessary to a poor
labourer under all circumstances*, but especially in those afflic-
tions to which he is peculiarly exposed. When suflferings like
those we have been describing befal such a man, when, without em-
ployment, or food, or health, he sinks the most wretched being
in nature, what is it that this precious system recommends, upon
principle, regarding him? "To the punishment of nature he
^ Malthus, Essay, p, 539.
* Report on Bettering the Conditiou of the Poor. vol. ii. p. 325. See Dr.
Ilalley on the Marriages of the I'oor.
54 IRELAND ; ITS EVIL8, [§ V.
with his reproofs ; hut which were crowded with
patient and grateful sufferers, with the infected, the
should be left, the punishment of severe want ' !" The absen-
tees follow this advice, and most exactly do as they "should"
in so leaving him. Poor Ellen and her children were so
" left." *' All parish assistance should be rigidly denied, and if the
hand of private charity be stretched forth in relief, the interests
of humanity require that it should be administered very sparingly.
She should be taught to know that the laws of nature, which are
those of God, had doomed her and her family (' but these'
infants, * what have they done ?') to starve for disobeying their
repeated admonitions — she has no claim of right on society for
the smallest portion of food 1" I refer the reader to the entire
passage. I have quoted far enough, and only changed it agreeably
to " the rubric," by substituting she for he. As to the most
helpless and friendless of human beings, deserted children, the
same system says, " The infant is, comparatively speaking, of no
value to society, as others will immediately supply its place '."
Jesus Christ, however, was no political economist, and has,
therefore, fairly warned those who are forgiving such " fair notice"
to others, that it were better for us that a millstone were hanged
about our necks, and that we were cast into the depths of the
sea, than we should act upon any such principled Scripture,
nevertheless, is quoted upon the occasion, and the second com-
mandment has a gloss put upon it % which, were it true, would make
revealed religion " a reproach and a hissing," even in the estima-
tion of heathenism. But God himself expressly clears his word
and providence of such an unrighteous interpretation, by an oath !'
and sound criticism, as well as divinity, utterly reject it. — (See
Bishop Jeremy Taylor on the second commandment, Works, vol.
ix. p. 36, and vol. iii. p. 66 ; and Dr. Paley's sermon on the same
passage.) The comment of Mr. Malthus differs from these totally,
and most critically coincides with that of the amiable Captain
Blifil in Tom Jones", as does the charity of his system with that
of Parson Thwackum'. Strange is it, that what the great novelist
invented as the keenest satire upon the most despicable of human
characters, should be now taken up as true divinity and sound
policy ! Something, however, this system says about charity,
and prides itself in so doing, as if it had made some important
concession ; but we reject its notion of duty quite as much as we
do its doctrines, and deny that the rag with which it tries to cover
its naked deformities, is of a piece with that luminous robe with
which Christianity is invested. Where is it that we are exhorted
to shut up our bowels of compassion, and steel our hearts against
» Malthus, Essay, p. 540. « Ibid. Essay, p. 540.
3 Matthew, c. xviii. v. 6. * Malthus, Essay, p. 543.
* Ezekiel, ch. xviii. passim.
• Fielding, Tom Jones, book ii. c. 2. '^ Jbid. book iii. c. 8.
§v.]
AND THEIR REMEDIES. 55
dying, and the dead : from scenes like these, I say,
there came a voice as audible as if it had been pealed
forth in thunder : '^^ I — 1, whose labour has supplied
all your wants, and supported your grandeur ; con-
tenting myself with the refuse^ in order to satisfy
those whose sufferings have been occasioned or aggravated by a
numerous family? Nay, though we admit that the circumstances
of the case and the character of the sufferer may be properly
enough considered, still, show us the precept that authorises us
in making merit the passport to our mercy. We defy such com-
mentators to show us one passage to this effect, in the entire
volume whose burden seems to be this divine virtue. On the con-
trary, hundreds might be instantly adduced in which so prudent
and politic a maxim is expressly reprobated ; christian charity, if
Christ may be allowed to expound it, is founded not in the perfec-
tions, but on the imperfections of our nature; and appeals to the
perfections of the Deity alone, whose mercies are represented to
us for our imitation, as promiscuous and universal. We are not
authorised to spurn the prodigal, nor to desert even the " unthank-
ful or the unholy." We are not allowed to hesitate in assisting
the necessities of our fellow-beings constantly and systematically;
nor to pause, in order to first ascertain how the misery which it
is our duty to relieve was occasioned; but, on the contrary, if we
be touched with this divine principle, our minds will be directed
to our own unworthiness ; and instead of uncharitably inquiring
respecting the unhappy object, " Did this man sin, or his father r"
the language of our heart will be — '* Remember not. Lord, our
otiences, nor the offences of our forefathers!" Above all, instead
of daring to strew doubts and difficulties in the way of this divine
virtue, we shall further all endeavours to console the sufferings
and relieve the afflictions of humanity, whether national or indi-
vidual, public or private, with all our mind, and soul, and strength.
Utterly regardless of the sarcasms and the sophisms of the modern
•school, we shall, as far as in us lies, maintain the ancient glory
of our country in this respect, and still further extend it, if it be
in our power, even to unhappy Ireland : in doing this, we know
we have nothing to fear, and least of all, doing too much. In
the words of the godlike Bacon, being certain that "charity, and
charity only, admitteth of no excess. By aspiring to a similitude
of God in goodness and love, neither man, nor angel, ever trans-
gressed or shall transgress." All this, however, I fear, is suffi-
ciently absurd in the opinion of the economists, whose chief
dogma has been forestalled long ago by our immortal bard, where
he satirically exclaims,
*' Men must learn now with pity to dispense,
For policy sits above conscience."
56 IRELAND ; ITS EVILS, [§ V.
your exactions, till even that failed me, and I sank —
I was sick — and ye — deserted me!" It is over!
Their victims have given up the ghost, unheeded
and even unheard ; and how should it be otherwise ?
Pursue the absentee into the scenes in which he is
expending, in a single night, what would have deli-
vered one of his dependent families from destruction,
and which another description of absentees are re-
ceiving. Can it be expected that the last sigh with
which the famished wretch takes leave of life should
be allowed to untune, for a moment, the ^^ ItaHan
trills" which ravish his refined ears ? or that he should
withdraw for an instant the eager gaze with which he
pursues '' the gesturous dance," to bestow it, or a
thought with it, on the convulsive death-throes he
has occasioned? or that the stake should be with-
drawn from the hazard-table, to throw it into the
scale, trembling with the fate of numbers, which it
would cause to mount up to life and happiness ? The
very idea is laughable !
(8.) Such, then, is the last wrong absenteeism
inflicts_, because it is the last it has in its power to
inflict ; the connexion is thus terminated^ and it will
be happy for those who have had in their life-time
their good things_, thus obtained and thus employed,
if the absenteeism is not eternal. I wish not to speak
as an enthusiast in religion, which I am not ; but let
it be recollected, that the sufferings so occasioned^,
and thus unrelieved, are not the phantasma flitting in
the glooms of a distempered imagination. None can
assert this. The nearer they are viewed, the more
they seem to multiply and enlarge, till they heighten
§ v.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 57
into awful realities ; and whether regarded or not^
those shadows are weaving the web of fate_, and giving
its eternal colour. If there be one jot of truth in
Christianity^ on this point it is perfectly clear, it
absolves no one from the duties of humanity, and
least of all_, the wealthy. Whether it be^ as is so
warmly contested_, a system of faith or of works, here
there can be no controversy. Whatever difference of
opinion there may be, as to some of its mysteries, on
this point it is awfully plain. And those who admit
it to be an excellent sort of thing for the poor_, re-
jecting its authority as it respects themselves, will do
well to recollect that, in this particular, its dictates
are plainly those of reason, humanity, and policy.
They may laugh at its denunciations touching another
world, but if these things are suffered to proceed un-
redressed, the vengeance of outraged humanity will
again have to be braved in this, as it has too often
been already.
But to return ; for a full proof of the misery ab-
senteeism inflicts, by occasioning and heightening the
sufferings sustained by the population of Ireland in
these too frequently recurring periods of general
sickness and distress, I refer to Drs. Baker and
Cheyne's valuable work, from which I have made
but few extracts, not wishing to obviate the necessity
of the reader's consulting it for himself. To this
authority may be added, that of the several volumi-
nous official reports more recently put forth^ on the
state of Ireland ; in which almost all the witnesses
describe the various evils absenteeism inflicts^ with,
however, one exception, to which allusion will be
58 IRELAND ; ITS EVILS, [§ V.
made hereafter, as forming a species of evidence
perfectly original and unique — " none but itself can
be its parallel."
(9.) I would not be meant to intimate, in any of
the preceding remarks, that absenteeism is universal,
or that it is always criminal. There are some who
have larger interests to protect, or duties to perform
in other parts of the empire, as well as many resi-
dent landlords, who spend their revenues amongst
those from whom they are derived ; and were it not for
these latter, it would not be possible that the absentees
could abstract from that country the sums they at
present do. The conduct of these real friends of
their country is most conscientious, and their charity,
on the afflicting occasion just alluded to, was beyond
all praise. But those who are thus fulfilling the im-
portant duties of their station, have their residence
rendered far more undesirable by the unnatural deser-
tion of those who act otherwise. The total neglect
of their duty by the latter, so far from being excused
by the due discharge of it on the part of the former,
is thereby rendered still more flagrant. It would re-
<|uire the entire natural resources of Ireland to be
devoted to her by those from whom they are im-
periously demanded, to effect her permanent advance-
ment ; every individual, therefore, who continues
to subtract any part of these, so far injures the
country, and destroys its prospect of advancement;
and let such recollect, that if absenteeism is not
universal, it is not owing to their conduct or their
example *.
* Perhaps, however, I liave gone too tar in saying that wo relief,
§ VI.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 59
§ VI. (1.) But new lights have burst upon us on
this important subject; the enlarged and philanthropic
views of generations of the patriots and legislators of
Ireland are all at once deemed " darkness visible ;"
books have been composed and lectures delivered^ to
prove that absenteeism is no evil whatsoever, and
parliament itself has called forth and published this
opinion. Let us, therefore, examine a little this
strange position_, which contradicts without the least
ceremony the common sense and feelings of mankind,
and is, most unhappily, at variance with the bitter
experience of the country in question. I shall not
contend the matter with a system which, though
all head, has no heart, and " not Hercules himself could
knock out its brains, for it has none ;" but address
myself to the plain sense of my readers.
Let us_, in order to see this subject more clearly,
present it as individually exemplified. Ireland is,
strictly speaking, an agricultural country ; even its
linen manufacture, as fabricated from produce grown
by the peasants on the patches they occupy, partakes,
in this dreadful period of universal distress, was, on the faith of
the representations which were made of its existence, seconded by
personal applications, administered to their suffering and dying
dependents, by these absentees. But I had just risen from the
attentive perusal of Drs. Baker and Cheyne's history of that
afflicting period; and whoever will follow me in that task will
excuse me in having come to that conclusion. Candour, however,
obliges me to say that it is not strictly correct. " In the calamitous
summer of 1822," I find that *' a subscription was made for the
relief of the poor of a certain district, by the resident gentry,
landowners, and clergy. Application was made to the absentee
proprietors, who annually abstracted from that country i;83,000.
Their subscriptions altogether amounted to eighty-three pounds M"
I am perfectly willing to admit this interesting fact, while thus
recording the evils of absenteeism.
» Bisliop of Limerick's Speech, p. 74. (June 10th, 1824.)
60 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [§ ^1-
in some sort^ of that character. Let ns imagine, then,
this agricultural population, as represented by a single
farmer, under a single landlord, and that landlord an
absentee ; and not to confuse the subject by long and
needless definitions about rent, value, &c._, which add
not a particle of practical information to the man that
attends to them, let us suppose the farmer to be what
was called a metayer, or, in other words_, one who
gives to the owner a certain proportion of the produce
of his cultivation in kind, for the usufruct of the
land he occupies ; and this every farmer does, either
directly (as is still the case in many parts of the con-
tinent, and almost universally throughout Italy,) or
indirectly, when he pays to the landlord the estimated
value of his share in money, having then to sell pro-
duce for that purpose, a far more convenient, though
perhaps less precise, mode of adjusting their respective
interests. I ought to have premised, that as the
wants agricultural labour supplies are not the only
necessities of human beings, especially as society
advances in civilization ; so it is wisely ordained that
agricultural labour does not demand, nor can it em-
ploy, an entire population : a certain, and indeed a large
proportion are left to answer other necessary demands,
and pursue different avocations. Reverting then to
the Irish farmer ; he has a large family ; his crime,
according to the new school, and too often in the
estimation of his landlord, who is positively so blinded
by interest as not to see that it is to this very cause
(the prolificness of human beings) that the increasing
value of his product is solely owing. But let this
pass. Part of the farmer s family remain totally idle,
§VI.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 61
or the whole partially so, and have to experience the
penury and suffering vvhich idleness inevitably entails,
and for precisely this reason: — the landlord is an ab-
sentee, and is, for example, in Naples. His share of
the produce (and we have seen how large a one it is
in Ireland) is transmitted to him thither, at all events
it leaves the island for that special purpose, the farmer
having little or nothing else to send; and this is all
that concerns the argument, which has not the least
to do with the various exchanges or profits, to which
his produce is subjected after it leaves his own shores,
till, either in bulk or value, it reaches his landlord.
Ireland, therefore, is not only deprived of the produce
which its suffering population too often stands in ab-
solute need of, but of that profitable labour which the
consumption of it by the landlord in his own country
would necessarily call into action. To the landlord
it may, perhaps, appear " all the same," though I
think this will admit of reasonable doubt in the up-
shot. He obtains by these remittances the services
of the Neapolitan coachmaker, tailor, shoemaker^ ser-
vant, or whatever assistance he may stand in need of;
but who does not see that, if he stayed in the country
from which his revenues are derived, part of the
farmer's family would be his coachmaker, tailor, shoe-
maker, servant ; in a word, be employed in rendering
him all the assistance which wealth demands from la-
bour, and for which labour is remunerated? Political
economy pronounces this to be all one, or rather de-
cides in favour of absenteeism ; but common sense,
confirmed by the melancholy experience of ages,
62 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [§ VI.
proves the difference to be that between a popula-
tion comfortably sustained and well employed, and
consequently advancing in prosperity and happiness,
and one idle and wretched, always in want, and often
on the verge of starvation, and sinking into still lower
depths of misery and degradation.
Even were these absentees to return and become
residents, still retaining their unnatural predilection
for articles of foreign industry, that part of the reve-
nues expended upon such would, I contend, be lost in
great measure to such a country as Ireland, which,
having little or nothing to export but provisions, with
a half-fed and less than half-employed population,
would be starved, as well as impoverished, just so far as
this practice prevailed. The Dublin Society proved,
by an exact calculation, that they might maintain
twenty poor families for a whole year, with the quan-
tity of beef and mutton which they exported for buying
a lady's head-dress ^ It may be true, perhaps, that as
many families, though perhaps not quite so poor, were
fed at Brussels by the importation of this cap ; but on
no imaginable ground can such a change be " all one"
to the twenty poor Irish families ; nor can political
economy prove it to be so, on any other ground than
that of a citizenship of the world, upon which prin-
ciple I have heard, of late, many of the notions of
that " science, falsely so called," boldly avowed and
defended, and which, I begin to think, is the stultifera
navis in which the whole school are embarked. If it
be so, it is high time they should hoist their true co-
* Spirit of Legislation, p. 248.
§V1.J AND THEIR REMEDIES. 63
lours : they are not British ; nor will Britain much
longer harbour those who show her no preference,
excepting where they have to be paid and victualled.
(2.) But further : if the modern notion concerning
absenteeship is true as it regards Ireland, it is true as
it respects all other countries : if it be true at all, it is
true universally. Let us apply it then, for a moment,
to Great Britain. Suppose the same rage for de-
serting the country were to prevail here that does
there (it does indeed prevail to a certain degree^ and is
so far, I maintain, pernicious and productive of more
of our national difficulties than many are aware of, or,
knowing, will acknowledge) ; bearing in mind that
the ownership of landed property, in almost all cases,
practically resolves itself into the right of receiving
annually a certain share of the produce of lands culti-
vated by others, it is plain that, if the landlords of Great
Britain were to desert the island universally, it would
not matter a jot, as it respects the point at issue, if
such absent owners were instantly, one and all, meta-
morphosed into foreigners : the mere circumstance of
their having been born and registered in this country
cannot, surely, affect the question. If Ireland, then,
is not impoverished by absenteeism, neither would
England and Scotland; and, if expending the owner's
share of the produce out of the country does not im-
poverish it, the united kingdom would not be a whit
the poorer, if every acre of its surface, and all under
its surface, were the fee-simple of foreign landlords, —
French, for instance, — never visiting this country, but
expending their share of its products in giving em-
ployment and its remuneration to the inhabitants of
64 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [§ ^'^•
Paris or Versailles. Nor, on the other hand, would
England be at all the richer if the entire kingdom of
France were owned by resident British subjects, and
its whole rental annually transmitted to and disbursed
in this country, in addition to its own. These
instances are, of course, meant to exhibit the subject
in its utmost possible extent : there are, it is admitted,
various degrees in which this evil prevails, according
to which its consequences will be more or less obvious
and important. A disease may be troublesome without
being dangerous^ or it may prostrate the strength
without immediately threatening life, or it may become
fatal at lengthy merely from its long continuation :
just so is it with absenteeism ; it may prevail to the
extent it does in England, when only a certain number,
twenty thousand, suppose^ of our gentry, are dissi-
pating their property abroad, in the vortex of French
fashion, or the sties of Italian corruption ; and these
may not, perhaps, throw more than a hundred thou-
sand English artisans out of employment, lowering
the condition and, of course, raising the national
burdens laid upon the rest; while in Ireland, perhaps,
at least a fourth (the estimate has often been a third) of
its landed rental is thus withdrawn ; but, just as it
prevails in any country, just so far is that country
degraded and beggared.
(3.) Nor are the evils of absenteeism confined, as
it respects Ireland, within its own shores. One of a
great and increasing magnitude, as it regards this
country, shall be here mentioned. Whether the
absentee landlords reside in England, or, as is often
the case, in other parts of Europe, still England is
§ VI.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 65
the coQntry to which the produce of Ireland has to
be exported^ to make up the rents of these absentees ;
occasioning not only great suffering to the people of
that country^ by abstracting more of the necessaries
of life from them than can frequently be spared, and
where larger portions of them ought always to be en-
joyed, but great mischief in this, by inundating the mar-
kets of England with cattle^ and_, soon after the Union,
with corn ; and, consequently, inflicting on the little
freeholders and farmers of England the most serious
injury — a class of men which I again differ with the
political economists in thinking ought to be upheld,
for reasons I shall state hereafter. Waiving this con-
sideration for the present, I shall point out a last evil
as consequent on absenteeism, a loss of that which the
class of writers against whom I am directing these
remarks, the economists, ought fully to appreciate,
for they are perpetually dwelling upon it, as though
it were the sole consideration under the sun : I mean
capital.
(4.) The capital of an entire country is created
and accumulated by slow degrees, and in a course of
years : and herein it differs most materially from
those individual fortunes or capitals which are often
rapidly obtained, and which are then too frequently
merely the transfer of property from one person to
another. But, in speaking on this point, a favourite
subject in political economy, I shall not presume to
offer a precise definition of the term capital, but
merely state what I mean by it, namely, property
accumulated beyond present consumption, and created
principally, as Locke has observed, by labour. But
66 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [§VI.
how, nationally speaking, property can be progres-
sively accumulated, when so little labour, compa-
ratively speaking, is demanded, and when that little
is so inadequately remunerated as scarcely to leave
the bare means of existence, it would be difficult to
imagine. That Ireland has lamentably little accu-
mulated capital, nationally considered^ is not any
matter of surprise, but rather, how she can possibly
supply the perpetual drains which are made upon her :
the possibility is, it is true, demonstrated, she does
supply them ; and how, is seen too well, in the
wretchedness of her people. As rational would it be
for a farmer to dream of enriching his fields by carting
oif all their produce, and returning nothing to the
ground ; or a physician to restore his patient from an
atrophy by starvation and depletion, as to suppose
Ireland can accumulate capital while a long list of
absentees are not only depriving her of all the means
by which she might be enriched, but constantly
wresting from her, in undue quantities, the very
necessaries of existence. I leave it to modern writers,
who dilate so much on the power of capital, to esti-
mate the injury Ireland suffers from absenteeism,
which has long deprived her of it, or the possibility of
accumulating it.
(5.) Much is said about the great benefits which
would accrue from the introduction of manufactures
into the distressed parts of that country. " But if
capitals sufficient to establish, or extend manufac-
tures, be not accumulated, which can scarcely be ex-
pected during the continuance of so great a drain of
money ; if the demand for labour do not keep pace
§ VI.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 67
with the increase of people, which in such case it may
not, if industry be overstocked ; there will undoubt-
edly be reason to apprehend a recurrence of those
disturbances which have already proved so injurious
to Ireland ^" Such is the opinion of Mr. Newenham
on this important subject ^
(6.) To apply what has been said to the immediate
subject of this treatise. It will be seen, from the pre-
ceding facts, and the necessary inferences drawn from
them, that there is the strongest ground for asserting
that Ireland, instead of negativing the theory of human
increase advanced in this work, confirms it in all its
main positions, in the most striking manner. It adds
another irrefragable proof of the principle which lies
at its foundation, the prolificness of a state of poverty
and privation^ . Even in that important particular, in
which it seems to deviate from what I conceive to be
one of the effects of the law of population, by exhibit-
ing a great increase of numbers without a correspond-
ing amelioration of condition, it so differs as to con-
firm the sreneral truth of that benevolent rule of
o
' Newenham, An Inquiry into the Progress, &c. pp. 170, 171.
* The introduction and extension of manufactures (a favourite
proposition with some in behalf of Ireland) is, therefore, rendered
impossible by absenteeship. It is difficult to imagine how they
could be introduced and encouraged v/ithout either capital or
demand,, to both of which that evil is fatal. But even were it not
so, it is not exactly the sort of remedy that a friend of the empire
at large would wish to see applied, had he his choice. Unless the
market for our fabrics could be very considerably extended, which
does not seem very probable, the fabrics of Ireland would have to
supplant those of England ; in which case poverty and employ-
ment would only change hands. The " immense manufacture" to
which Montesquieu refers, seems most adapted to the condition and
wants of Ireland of all others ; of which more hereafter.
^ Dr. Watkinson expressly attributes the fecundity of the Irish
to this cause. — (Phil. Survey of the South of Ireland, ])• M.7.)
F 2
68 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [§^'I-
nature, constituting it one of those exceptions which
prove its correctness.
I must repeat, therefore, in reference to that coun-
try, that when the population was not a fifth of its
present number, all the evils now attributed to a sur-
charge of inhabitants existed, and even in a greater
degree than they do at present ; that, large as has been
the increase of the inhabitants since that period, so far
from the increase of its edible products having fallen
short (which is the real consideration), the latter has
very far surpassed the former ; and that the want of
employment generally, and of the wealth which labour
generates, is plainly attributable to the constant sub-,
traction of so vast a portion of the natural wealth of
the country by absentees, who, far different to such a
withdrawal upon mercantile principles, make no return
whatsoever. Hence the desertion of those w^hose re-
sidence would create those avocations which diffuse
wealth wherever they are pursued, keeps down the mass
of the people in a state of the lowest poverty, — a state,
I repeat, the most favourable of all others to human
prolificness. Were the wealth which mankind, under
equal circumstances, always create in proportion to
their numbers, allowed to remain in the country, em-
ployment would be created, and employment (to say
nothing concerning its moral effects) would confer
and diffuse affluence, and affluence w^ould introduce
those sedentary avocations, those comforts and in-
dulgences approaching to luxury, and often termina-
ting in it, — in fine, that general ease and enjoyment,
the concomitants of riches, which are always diffused
in a community, if fairly dealt wit^ in proDortion to
§VII.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 69
its numbers. Every step of this progress would^ while
increasing the wealthy diminish the natural prolific-
ness of the country ; by means totally opposite to
" the checks" of the contrary system, and agreeable
to a law of nature, which forms that self-adjusting,
sacred equipoise by which she proportions her num-
bers to her means of sustentation. Her laws are those
of benevolence^ but when they are constantly with-
stood, she works no miracles to counteract the misrule
of mankind, and consequently does not suspend those
laws in respect to Ireland, which are in constant
operation elsewhere. Ireland is not overpeopled :
she is prolific ; but that prolificness is attributable to
the desertion of those who charge it upon her as a
crime. She is poor and wretched.
§ VII. Diifering thus widely in regard to the disease
of Ireland, with those whose principle I am opposing,
it is no wonder that our remedies are diametrically
opposite. To commence with the consideration of
theirs ; they are, as far as I have been able to collect
them, principally these : —
1. The expatriation of a number of the present
inhabitants.
2. Clearing the country of others by the engross-
ment of farms.
3. Giving the people a taste for superior living.
4. An ecclesiastical confiscation.
(1.) The first of these notable expedients, patron-
ised as it is, it requires but few words to expose.
I'be disorder of Ireland, as before shown, has been of
long continuance ; and, if it had been one to be cured
70 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [§^^''
by such a remedy as this, it would have been removed
long since. I again refer the reader to Archbishop
Boulter's letters, written a centuiy ago, and several
other works of that period ; extracts of which may be
found in ^* Newenham's Inquiry concerning the Po-
pulation of Ireland," for evidence of the extensive
emigrations that formerly took place ; when it will be
fully seen that, were the remedy desirable, we have no
chance whatever of applying it, in reference to the
relative numbers, in a degree equal to that in which it
was tried, above a hundred years ago, and thencefor-
ward for at least half a century. The disposable
resources of the country cannot make up the depletive
prescription of our political quacks, — thank God, this
once, for our poverty ; otherwise the whole empire
would have been dosed with their panacea on many an
emergency, and its vital strength, long ere this, pros-
trated without hope of recovery. It is hard to acquit
of the imputation of either ignorance or cruelty, the
proposal of applying a sum of money in sending a
number of inhabitants out of the country on the plea
of inadequate provision, which, properly applied,
would bring into cultivation wastes sufficient to sus-
tain a far greater number than it could transport;
securing thereby not only an increase in the provisions
of the country, but encouraging, to a like extent,
every other branch of its industry, and making a
permanent and inexhaustible addition to its capital
and wealth. In a word, whatever is to cure the dis-
tress of Ireland, migration is not the remedy, simply
for these three reasons; 1. It is but a temporary
expedient on the acknowledged principles of those
^VII.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 71
who would adopt it. Those who hold the modeni
notion on population, the superfecundity of the human
race, in resorting to this^ are knowingly exhausting
the resources of the country for no manner of purpose
whatsoever ; wearying her, like Sisyphus, in fruitlessly
labouring against an irresistible law of nature, which
strengthens in its operations precisely in the propor-
tion in which it is counteracted. These gentlemen
talk confidently of the pressure of population in all
directions, and that it invariably rushes in wherever
there is a " vacuum," and finds, like water, its own
level ; and still they propose a plan for our relief,
precisely as wise, on their own principles^, as though
an engineer, in order to build the pier of a bridge,
should set his hands a-pumping without having con-
structed^ or being able to construct, a coffer-dam.
This objection, therefore, is fatal to the scheme, even
according to their own notions. But, 2. It is de-
monstrably a totally worthless remedy, in its having
been tried largely and long, and having wholly failed.
3. If it had not been tried at all, and were there any
the least reason to believe it would succeed, the dis-
posable revenue of the country Avould not suffice to
carry the plan into effect on a scale sufficiently large
to answer the purposes contemplated, its advocates
themselves being the judges as to the extent to which
it should be adopted.
But, as this notable proposition is now brought
forth, not only as it regards Ireland, but even England,
and is at once to prove the truth of the tlieoiy of
population which I oppose, as v/ell as to become the
palliative (cure none suppose it can ever be) of those
72 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [§^11.
evils which it fixes upon God and nature, I shall
dwell a little longer on this point generally, though
I have already elsewhere given it a distinct consi-
deration.
(2.) Without adverting, in these pages, to the
identity of human origin, or the region which, as a
profane writer of antiquity remarks, is, in the first
glimpses which history affords, presented to us as
fully peopled, and from whence diverged, as from a
common centre, those various tribes of the human
family, that have since spread over various parts of
the earth ; I shall just mention an argument which is
discussed in the work so frequently alluded to, where
it is shown, that though it was owing to the migratory
propensities of the human race, that the earth became
peopled, still it was to the ultimate repression of that
habit, either by a voluntary or compulsory settlement,
that they found themselves conducted through ad-
vancing degrees of civilization to prosperity and hap-
piness ; their numbers still multiplying and adding, at
every augmentation, fresh stores of abundance, as well
as new accessions of moral and intellectual wealth.
Limited to a certain territory, each community found
its confines to be the boundaries of increasing happi-
ness. That salient source of all human prosperity,
individual or national, population, no longer discharg-
ing itself into some distant void, now flowed back
upon " the shallows and the miseries," which it had
previously left exposed, every refluent wave expand-
ing and deepening, not the ocean of vitality merely,
but the abyss of the Divine bounty, the depth and
breadth of which have as yet never been fathomed.
§VI1.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 73
and we humbly presume it is given to no political
economist to explore. The '' scattering of man-
kind over the face of the earth" may be distinctly
traced to their animal propensities, to their sloth
and ignorance, operated upon by necessity ; their
numbers having increased agreeably to the law pre-
viously developed_, that necessity called forth their
intellectual faculties, rendered them stationary, intro-
duced the institutions and the arts of social existence ;
and, in a word, created the immeasurable distance
between savage and civilized man. Having elsewhere
pursued this argument in detail, and connected it with
its historical evidences, I shall only now observe,
generally, that nothing can be more clear than that
the great work of planting the nations was not per-
formed when the earth was full of inhabitants, but,
on the contrary, when it was a comparative void : not
by nations whose numbers were the greatest, but the
fewest and most scattered ; in a word, not by those
who had a real necessity to migrate, but by those whose
ignorance taught them so to suppose, and whose bar-
barism made them fit instruments for the purpose,
rendering them insensible of regrets or solicitudes,
either respecting the seats they left, or those to which
chance directed their course. It was a work per-
formed in ages of ignorance, or in times of strife and
oppression, though the results have been so tran-
sccndently great. Those engaged in it, like tbc
husbandman, often went forth weeping, bearing pre-
cious seed ; it was reserved for posterity to gather the
copious sheaves and rejoice in the abundant harvest.
In conformity with this view of the subject is the
74 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, R VII.
fact_, that_, as the population of the different nations
has increased_, the necessity of these wanderings has
diminished. I speak this advisedly, and in defiance
of the information, or, I would rather say, the more
formidable ignorance, of all the migration committees
upon earth. I do not mean to say, but that many
soul-stirring occasions, many powerful impulses, still
may, and certainly will, carry numbers from every
country to distant climes, even ^'to the farthest verge
of the green earth;" or that such impulses may not be
commissioned to eifect some peculiar and important
purposes of Divine Providence ; or that there are not
circumstances which demand such ejections on a
principle of policy and humanity; but I deny, in behalf
of a highly fertile, but imperfectly cultivated country, —
I deny, in behalf of those feelings which endear to a
grateful people their native seats and nearest con-
nexions,— I deny, in the name of the strength and ma-
jesty of the empire — and, as I trust I shall make mani-
fest, in that of truth itself, that the wholesale deporta-
tions, now contemplated, are necessary — that they are
otherwise than unnatural, impolitic, and cruel. On
these consequences I shall not dwell at present, but
shall merely add, that if we follow the dictates of na-
ture, and take with us the lights of human history, we
shall doubtless arrive at safe conclusions. We shall
find, that the main instruments in these colonizing
migrations were barbarism and oppression; their pe-
riods those " times of ignorance which God winked
at," and rendered subservient to his benevolent pur-
poses: those purposes accomplished, that veil of ig-
norance which seemed as effectuallv to conceal the
§VH.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 75
inexhaustible bounties of Providence from their be-
nighted eyes, as it does from those of our political
economists, was drawn aside, and the bosom of Na-
ture, in all its loveliness and sufficiency, was bared to
all her children. It has been already said, and indeed
often repeated, that, as human beings have increased,
their condition has been ameliorated ; it must, how-
ever, be added, that, under more auspicious circum-
stances, the ties of kindred and social affection, and of
attachment to country, so dear to all generous minds,
have become strengthened and rooted in the very
fibres of the heart. To tear them thence would too
often be to leave an aching void which no after scenes
of life could fill, and least of all those most of them
would have to encounter. But in the divine economy,
in these periods there are no such expedients dictated ;
Providence acts not by a system of cruel contrarieties ;
the desire of expatriation (excepting under perverse
mismanagement), and its necessity, cease together ;
while the feelings of patriotism, fed by all the charities
of life, and which it ought to be the care of all go-
vernments to cherish, rise in the deepest hostility to the
proposition, and identify it with a penal infliction, in
shame and suffering only short of ignominious death.
To apply the preceding remarks to the subject be-
fore us. When Europe, by far the most densely
peopled, though perhaps the least fertile quarter of
the globe, had probably not a twentieth part of its
present inhabitants, we find them (at least in those
parts which were the scantiest of people) in perpetual
motion and fluctuation. But now that its numbers,
in its confined territorv, amount to so many scores of
76 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [§^11.
millions, how few_, comparatively speaking, desert
their country ? Meantime that they even now occupy,
or adequately cultivate its surface, none will he found
to assert. Malte-Brun intimates that, managed as at
present, its soil would aiford food enough for a thou-
sand milh'ons of inhabitants* ; a calculation far within
any I have ever seen, which take for their basis agri-
cultural data. How many additional millions this
kingdom would sustain, not with diminished, nor yet
with stationary comforts and accommodations merely,
but with as large an accession to their plenty and
prosperity as to their numbers, I shall not again in-
quire. In the mean time, the idea of sending num-
bers of our fellow-subjects to distant regions, in
search of a precarious bread, is nothing less than a
vestige of that ignorant barbarism, which the principle
I am opposing is making a strong, but, I trust, a last
and ineffectual effort to perpetuate : an expedient
which has been often connected with injustice and
violence, and which, in its very nature, must ultimately
fail, when apparently the most necessary. Can it
therefore be resorted to consistently with the dictates
of sound policy, or reconciled with the permanent
designs of an eternal Providence ?
(3.) But if the scheme of thus transporting a cer-
tain number of its inhabitants is, in itself, revolting
to us, the plan proposed by which it is to be put
into execution, and the principle of dcteimining those
on whom the lot of being cast out of the country is to
fall, heighten our feehngs of hostility to it. Though
no assistance whatsoever is to be afforded to such
* Malte-Brun, book xcv. p. 87.
§VII.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 77
whom a very little capital would elevate into a state
of comfortable indastry at home, adding permanently
to the resources of the country^ and which^ as ex-
pended here, could not finally, no, nor presently, be
lost ; yet loans, it seems, are to be offered to such as
will go out of the kingdom^ which in many cases will
be inevitably sacrificed, as well as themselves. But
who are the description of persons who are to be
thus tempted and assisted to leave our shores, the
industrious or the idle ? the able-bodied or the weak?
the bees or the drones of society ? This, it seems, our
politicians have decided. Imagining the social edifice
to be overloaded, they actually propose to remedy
the evil by removing a part of its foundations !
(4.) Though these ideas are sufficiently absurd^ they
are neither new nor peculiar to any state of population.
A philosopher of France, who may be quoted on
either side the argument in which I am engaged_,
says, in his flippant manner, that there are countries in
which a man is worth nothing, and others in which he
is worth less than nothing : it passes at present for a
proof of wisdom to pronounce this to be the predica-
ment of a human being in almost every nation, and
especially in our own ; and the destiny of thousands
is now to be decided by a pretty verbal antithesis.
Mr. Malthus is yet plainer in his dogmas than Montes-
quieu, and boldly assures the honourable committee,
that putting out of existence a thousand labourers
here and there, would, nationally speaking, be an
advantage \ Thank God, these notions arc as absurd
and impolitic as they are selfish and cruel. In whose
' Third Emigration Report, p. 321, § 3-246.
78 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [§VII.
estimation is it, let us ask^ that a man is worth less than
nothing ? In that of his God ? No ! He values one such
at far beyond the worth of the material world ! But
this sort of valuation is perfectly ridiculous in the ears
of the political economist, who, in taking upon him-
self to regulate the population of time, regulates that
of eternity, a business to which he is equally called,
and for which he is quite as well qualified. But it is
the privilege of his luminous theory which is to dictate
the policy, and determine the worth, of human beings,
to make no references to a Deity ; and in'all his pro-
positions regarding them, he can therefore console the
statesman, as Mrs. Quickly did Sir John Faltsaff,
'^ Now I, to comfort him, bid him a* should not
think of God." Well, then, to forget God, and
to argue the question on mere personal and selfish
grounds : — In the first, and infinitely the most im-
portant, view of the subject, man is worth every
thing to himself; and on what other than mere selfish
considerations do those argue, who hold the contrary
notion ? He is worth every thing to the little circle
by whom he is surrounded, who become all to each
other just in proportion as they have nothing else ;
and who feel the links that bind their hearts together,
the more indissoluble, in that they may have been
cemented in the furnace of affliction. Have I, then,
or any man, political economist or otherwise, any
right to pronounce my fellow-creature of no value,
because I cannot make it out to my satisfaction that he
is of any to me ? And, supposing I have come to this
complacent conclusion, has not such a one the right
of retorting the doctrine upon myself? and, if I am
§VII.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 79
disposed to act upon it, will he not ultimately appeal
to his manhood, and fatally convince me of my
error ? Do not I deserve to be convinced of it the
moment I am uttering the horrible idea ? Let me
endeavour, then, to learn, if I have never as yet known
it_, that it is not upon a principle of monopoly, but on
that of a kind copartnership, that the Deity hath
" given the earth to the children of men ;" and that I
have no more right to judge of the worthlessness of
human beings, on a principle of cruel selfishness, than
Cain had to act upon it K
(5.) But it has pleased Infinite Wisdom, in pity
to human weakness, to fortify the obligations of man-
kind, by invariably uniting them with their true inte-
rests. Hence, as it is our duty to love, and cherish, and
value our fellow-men, it is plainly our advantage so to
do. And, without re-entering upon the argument,
that mankind are not merely ecjually necessary to
each other as their number increases, but, owing
to the peculiar wants which civilization creates and
multiplies, that they become actually more so *, I shall
now shortly examine the notion of the worthlessness
of human beings, on a broad and general principle.
Our old-fashioned national economists calculated the
wealth of the country as principally consisting of the
number of its inhabitants ^ ; in the new school, human
beings still continue to be valued, but, as it respects
' *' Everyman must live ! This argument, which has more or less
weight with every man, in proportion to his humanity, appears to
me to be unanswerable in regard to him who uses it." — (Rousseau.)
* This is the case even in Ireland ; where the population is the
thinnest, the demand for labour is the least, and is, of course, the
worst remunerated. — (See Report on the State of Ireland, Part 4th,
p. 445, &.) 3 gjj. ^ni. Petty's Polit. Arithmetic, &c.
80 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [§VIII.
many of thcm_, by a kind of negative series. The former,
notwithstanding the sneers of the day_, I think^ is the
true mode on every rational view of the subject.
What, I would ask, is it, that creates that capital con-
cerning the definition of which so great a stir is made,
as to cause the thing itself to be nearly lost sight of?
— Human labour. What then constitutes capital but
men ; and furthermore, what can alone give value to
capital, when created? — Men. The exceptions from
that catholic law of nature which has constituted
human exertion the condition of subsistence, whether
those which wealth has absolved from the necessity of
its observance, or '^ the act of God," has rendered in-
capable of obeying it, are such as affect not the gene-
ral principle, except to confirm it. In every stage of
civilization, from the first rudiments of society to its
most perfect state, mankind have been ever found ne-
cessary to each other, and consequently not personally
only, but relatively valuable.
That this is not a mere theoretical view of the
subject, I appeal to all ages and countries of the
world. Mr. Malthus has told us (how erroneously
will be elsewhere shown) that Greece was sur-
charged with inhabitants. Never, however, did its
citizens regard the lowest, and infinitely the most
numerous class amongst them, *^ redundant," except-
ing w^hen they conceived them to be, on particular
emergencies, too formidable for their safety. On
the contrary, they were constantly making pre-
datory expeditions, one principal object of which
was the seizure of men ^, who were a profitable article,
' Mitford, History of Greece, vol. i. p. 182.
§ VI I.J AND TflElR REM ED IKS. 8 1
of sale amongst them. Xcnophon, in his Econo-
mics, recommends an addition of twenty thousand
shives at once to those ah'eady in the state of Athens^
who^ it is calculated by some, outnumbered the free-
men about twenty to one^. Rome, in like manner,
imported men from different parts of the world in
vast numbers, at the very time when, were we to
believe the theory I am opposing, she was already
overwhelmed with peopled In England, likewise,
during the feudal system, when men were per-
sonal property, vastiim hominum et rerwn on an
estate, was, in the celebrated instrument Magna
Charta, regarded as an equal injury to its owner.
I dare say the serfs of Russia, appertaining to the
great proprietors of that country, are still similarly
estimated. As to the negroes in our sugar islands,
I presume I hardly need to state that such is the
manner in which they are regarded, namely, as valu-
able property. In Barbadoes there were, in 1820,
78,345 slaves, the island containing, it is said,
106,470 acres of land ; giving a population, ex-
clusively of the whites, far more than twice as
dense as that of Ireland \ The proprietors of the
island, meantime, complain, and, I dare say, very
' Hume says ten : but on reference to Xenophon, it will be seen,
I think, that an additional ten thousand is mentioned, and that it
is proposed they should be further increased to sixty thousand. —
(See lioeckh's Greece.)
"* See the authority for this proportion in Hume's Essay on the
populousness of ancient nations (Essays, vol. ii. p. 230) ; and in
Boeckh, who estimates the number of the slaves, compared with
that of the citizens, including the whole free population, as 100
to 27, (vol.i. p. 52.)
^ Montesquieu, Causes of the Rise and Fall, &c., ch. viii.
'Sec Slave Population, Pari. Papers, 1824, No. 424; Coi-
quhoun's Wealth, cS:c.
G
82 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [§ V*'-
truly_, of bad times ; but, supposing the apostles of
the emigration scheme were to send one of their
missioners to them, who should say to the Barba-
does planters, " Gentlemen, your distresses are great
and increasing ; but the cause is plain enough, you
are in this island overpeopled ; turn adrift some con-
siderable proportion of your hands, and the greatest
prosperity will certainly ensue." Why, the proposal
would be taken as pointblank proof of insanity.
" These hands," they would say, "though not so valu-
able and beneficial to us as might be wished, under
existing circumstances, are nevertheless our capital ; to
expel or destroy these is, indeed, a very simple proposal,
but it is one which would complete our ruin. What-
ever be our property, they constitute its principal part ;
whatever our profits, they are necessary to realize
them." "Aye," but suppose the theorist were to
say of a number of the helpless children who are,
doubtless, constantly rising in the colony, as it has
already advised should be done here, — " at any rate
desert these children, and thereby prevent an undue
accumulation of people in future." "No!" it would
be replied, " these constitute our future stock."
" Well, but, at all events, you could ease your condi-
tion by saving the expense of any longer supporting
those who, it is certain, can no longer be profitable
to you, but must, in every sense of the word, be
superfluous ; such as are rendered incapable of future
labour, by hopeless disease or incurable accident, or
who are worn out by age and infirmity.*' " Yes,"
they would reply indignantly, ^' we might so serve
ourselves, it is true ; but we abhor the proposition.
§ VII.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 88
if not those who make it : we leave such conduct to
be recommended and practised by the political eco-
nomists of England, upon their brethren the whites,
if they dare. Bad as we are represented to be, there
is not a slave-driver in the Indies that would not
execrate the very idea of acting on such a principle."
(6.) Not to pursue the inquiry any further, we
may conclude, without the fear of contradiction, that
in no age or country of the world in which mankind
have been held in bondage, and been the property
of others, have they ever been deemed valueless.
The question, then, presents itself in a very definite
and simple form : does the condition of the labouring
classes deteriorate as society advances in improve-
ment ? Do they sink in actual and individual value,
just in proportion as they rise in the social scale ?
Can so disgraceful a question demand a reply in these
days; did it ever require one? None can doubt but
that, if all their rights and privileges were annulled,
and the labouring classes of the community were
again to become the living chattels of their superiors,
they would, as before, be reckoned valuable to the
latter ; and if so, it will admit of no dispute, but that,
as freemen, they are now worth more to the body
politic than would be their aggregate value to private
individuals, just in the same proportion as free labour
is always more profitable and productive than com-
pulsory. The most ancient of poets says,
'' Jove fix'd it certain that the very day
Makes man a slave, takes half his worth away;"
and the father of prose asserts the same thing\ But
' Herod., Terps., Ixxviii.
G2
84 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [§ VII
our moderns, full of the wondrous improvement ot
the times, and of the vast advantages of free labour,
in a national as well as individual point of view,
would have us to believe^ nevertheless, that the day
which makes man a freeman takes all his worth
away, nay, actually reduces him in value to less than
nothing, and makes it a national object to get rid of
him.
A subject of such infinite importance to human
beings ought not to be hastily dismissed ; let us,
therefore, inquire to whom it is, constituted as society
now is, that the least of these our brethren is thus
utterly valueless, and worse. At a period when it
seems to be the absurd and ruinous policy of too
many to deal with the great national interests sepa-
rately; and not only as distinct, but as adverse to
each other, let us so far follow their pernicious exam-
ple, as so to address them. First, then, I ask, ye
agriculturists, who have, unhappily, as early con-
verts to political economy, long acted upon the
principle I am opposing, as far as you could, by
engrossing farms, and degrading the lesser tenantry
into labourers, and these again into paupers, and
murmuring many of you that you are not allowed to
desert the poverty which you have been active in cre-
ating ; — I say, 1 ask you, whether there are too many
mouths in the country at large for you to supply : on
the contrary, whether all your representations and re-
monstrances do not imply the contrary, and establish
the fact of an over-production in reference to the de-
mand, or, in other words, to the number of the inha-
bitants at large ? Do you think that a general thinning
§ VII.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 85
of the people would serve you, or, if not, that we
must quit a certain number of them in particular
spots, just as you shall point them out, with a view
to subserve your particular views and interests ?
Next, T would address my inquiry to the handicrafts
and manufacturers : have ye too many human beings
to supply with clothing, furniture, and all the other
conveniences of life, of your fabrication ; and would
your business be benefitted, think ye, if the Emigra-
tion Committee could tithe your countrymen, who
comprehend the vast majority of your customers, a
few times over ? That man^ methinks, would have
as slight a claim to common sense as to humanity,
who should so argue. Your complaint is, that your
markets are too confined, and your customers too
few ; and it is one, I fear, which will increase, or at
least frequently return, while you are taught to seek
relief as at present. Divided as your different kinds
of labour are, the demand and supply of each neces-
sarily finding their proper level, and being in all cases
strictly reciprocal, it is obvious that the producer
and consumer are identified. It is, therefore, a some-
what singular method of mending trade, to ship off
a few hundred thousands of your best and surest cus-
tomers.
(7.) All this is sufficiently absurd, yet such is the
real fact : our agriculturists, our artisans, and our
manufacturers, if they be of the illuminati, all concur in
throwing their distresses, fancied or real, upon over-
flowing numbers, though, if you inquire of each par-
ticularly, you shall find that the notion is only held
by them as it respects their own particular ela!?s ; the
86 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [§ VII.
Others, their custoiners_, they pronounce to be too
few. Thus^ for example, a fraternity of tailors, in a
town, complaining of dull trade, naturally lay it to
the charge of too large a population. Supposing,
then, the fates were to become propitious, and sever
with their shears the vital thread of half the entire
inhabitants, including, of course, a like proportion of
themselves ; would the latter, though diminished thus
in numbers, have an additional stitch of work, seeing
that their customers had disappeared in the like pro-
portion ? They know better. It is the size of the
tailoring population of which they complain : they
leave it to the political economists to apply the prin-
ciple generally \
Some, however, I am aware, argue most profoundly
that it is poverty alone of which the country ought to
be purged ; as if poverty were not inherent in the
constitution of human society, and as if, were it pos-
sible to eradicate it, that it were desirable : neither of
which is the fact. Amongst all the ordinations of
Providence, nothing is more certain, and, perhaps,
could we see far enough into its dispensations, nothing
more wise than its irreversible fiat," the poor shall never
cease out of the land." But, as to the question im-
mediately before us ; the redundancy even of these,
in reference to our national industry, is, I think, very
' Mr. Malthus, indeed, talks that the prudential restraint, if
generally adopted, " by narrowing the supply of human labour in the
market, would, in the natural course of things, soon raise its price."
The very proposition, common as it is to our political economists,
contains a similar self-contradiction. Pray, would not the market
of demand be narrowed in precisely the same ratio as the market
of labour, by the general adoption recommended ? The contrary
supposition is too absurd to need notice.
§ VII.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 87
fallaciously determined by many. The poor^ we arc
not to forget, are consumers to the amount of their
entire expenses ; and, of the several millions which
they cost the country, almost every fraction is redistri-
buted amongst the industrious classes of the com-
munity ; which we are not sure would be the case, at
least to anything approaching the same proportion,
were that sum retained by the wealthy, from whom
it is now taken, or returned to them. No inconsi-
derable part of it would then, doubtless, find its way
into the pockets of foreign artisans, or indeed, in nu-
merous instances, be altogether disbursed abroad.
True it is, that only a part of the rates expended in
sustaining the poor is in the first instance expended
in payment of labour ; but it is not so clear a point in
political economy, that this is an unmingled evil, as
it is in other respects. If the market of labour is at
present fully supplied, it is not quite certain but that
throwing additional hands into it would be preju-
dicial. On higher motives, however, than mere in-
terest can suggest, all relief should be rigidly con-
fined to, and connected with labour ; excepting in
cases where the party to be relieved is incapable of
rendering it : but it should be such labour as would
in no case interfere with the demand for it now
existing. But I am wandering from the point ; and
I would, therefore, simply repeat here, that even the
circulation which the system of sustaining our poor
occasions in articles of internal industry solely, could,
I think, hardly be dispensed with, if cither humanity,
policy, or even safety, would warrant us in making
H8 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [§ VI f.
the experiment of transporting them, an expedient
which has been recommended long ago.
(8.) Further : how does patriotism relish the pro-
posal of these vast deportations of our countrymen ?
The defence and glory of the nation, once the first
objects of all states, and especially of our own, have
not, it may be hoped, become quite obsolete ideas.
The occasions which called them forth have been too
recent and too portentous to allow them, one would
think, to be entirely forgotten. In the late period
of trial, then, and a long and tremendous one it was,
while the combatants trembled at each other's
resources, courage, and perseverance, and the world
looked on in fearful and agitating suspense as to the
issue ; then, I say, when England had, perhaps, for
the first time, in her eventful history, to put forth
her utmost strength for her preservation, (and, thank
God ! it sufficed,) — had she, I ask, ye politicians, too
many arms raised in her defence, too many hearts
engaged in her cause ? I would rather ask the anti-
populationists whether, if she had listened to their
system, and had had fewer, she would have weathered
the storm r But, forgetting the past, with all the load
of gratitude it lays us under to the population of the
empire, " now the hurly burly's done," and England
is reduced to a state approaching to exhaustion, partly
owing to her long continued exertions, has she, I
would ask the statesman, too many to sustain the
load entailed upon her, or amongst whom to divide
the accumulated demands which are perpetually made
upon her resources ? I trow not, and think such
§ VII. J AND THEIR REMEDIES. HI)
should be the very last so to determine, for reasons
whieh I shall not now particularize.
Lastly, I appeal to nature and to God, whether, in
this country, human beings are superfluous. Let the
thirty millions of uncultivated acres, out of the
seventy-seven which these islands comprise, as well as
those boundless unimproved '^^ wastes of the ocean" by
which they are surrounded, to use Lord Bacon's
expression, finally answer this question. If you want
food, therefore, here it is to be obtained in supplies
that defy calculation ; if you want labour, here it pre-
sents itself to an unlimited extent, and of the most
practicable as well as beneficial kind. But our poli-
tical economists, disgusted with proposals so obvious
and natural_, turn from them, like Naaman did from
the prophet in contempt ; and require some great and
imposing remedies to be applied, some mysterious
incantations to be pronounced, and cruel rites to be
performed, in order to the relief of our country.
Above all, it seems, we are now to seek relief in an
expedient which has hitherto been regarded as one of
the deepest of human punishments, and the most un-
equivocal proofs of the divine displeasure, the expulsion
and final dispersion of part of the tribes of our Israel.
And who, let me again ask, is it proposed to send
forth ? — Helpless infancy ? I believe not. Decrepit
age and incurable disease ? — Certainly not ; we are
hardly, as yet, prepared to remove the poor from our
presence when debilitated by weakness and disease;
as it is said was the practice of the Romans who ex-
posed such ill the ible of iEsculapiu^ '. No. The
' ^iiot..iii Claud,, c. 2.^,
90 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [§ VII.
emigrants are to be composed of the able-bodied, the
young, and the healthful ; in a word, the elite of the
empire, these are to be bribed, starved and conveyed
out of the country. Such are they whom the standard
of emigration is unfurled to collect ; and a bounty of
a sixty-pounds loan offered ; artd while it is mustering
its recruits, its language is, '^ let the dead bury their
dead, follow thou me !"
(9.) But the impolicy of the scheme, after all, is
nothing to its cruelty. That, though inflicting much
injury on the interests of the country, would, on the
principles previously laid down in this book, remedy
itself; but this is irreparable. What has been pre-
viously said on this particular subject may be here
repeated ; that the capitalists are they who ought to
emigrate, if they are so disposed, and not the indus-
trious labourers, who, under proper encouragement,
may subsist anywhere ; and that this is a just view of
the subject, however much it may clash with that of
our present projectors, I appeal to the entire annals
of emigration \ If humanity have anything to do
with the business, this point has been long decided.
To allude to the early emigrations from Ireland; Arch-
bishop Boulter says : " Of these, possibly one out of
ten may be a man of substance, and may do well
enough abroad, but the case of the rest is deplorable^."
So it still continues. There now lies before me a
mass of evidence which I have collected on this point,
* Graham, Rise and Progress of the United States, vol.i. pp. 30,
68, 185, 303, &c. Burke, America, vol. ii. pp. 144, 219. Raynal,
Hist, des Indes, torn. vii. 1. 13. p. 43.
^ Archbishop Boulter, Letters, vol. i. pp. 260, 261.
§ VII.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 91
but which I shall, however_, refrain from copying ; tlie
general fact of the great distress which has hitherto
accompanied these deportations, whether to Africa or
America, is now too well known to require me to
harrow up the feelings of my readers in proving it.
The sufferings which have been thus occasioned have
been, hitherto, beyond calculation greater than those
which a similar number would have been exposed to
in the country from whence they have been sent.
This distressing fact it behoves the advocates of emi-
gration to know, and, if they know, not to conceal.
The miserable condition of our poor emigrant country-
men has long called forth the pity of even those
strangers amongst whom they have taken refuge ; and^
we are assured, has subjected the latter to those
onerous burdens to which they have generously sub-
mitted in their behalf. The late accounts of the mor-
tality and distress amongst these unfortunate exiles in
Halifax, Nova Scotia, is but a continuation of the mise-
ries which they have been long subject to ; previous
ones from Southern Africa have not been of a much
more cheering nature. Nor is it from books or public
prints alone that this information is derived ; most of
us have had some opportunities of obtaining it person-
ally, and from private quarters, and not unfrequently
from the lips of the sufferers themselves ; informa-
tion, I confess, which is quite sufficient to rouse one's
feelings in afterwards opening upon florid representa-
tions, illustrated with beautiful maps, which do any-
thing rather than truly represent to individuals, who
have never been beyond these shores, the destiny that
awaits manv of them .. if thi v leave their native hiiid.
92 IRELAND; ITS EVILS^ [§ Vlll.
Let the Poyais stock fluctuate on 'Change as it may ;
and the Cacique of, I forget what territory, dispose of
his allotments to the poor dupes, our countrymen, as
he can, (though, I think, " this also is an iniquity to
he punished hy the judges") ; hut let not the British
parhament he any longer accessary to the act of
decoying out of the country its real friends and
defenders. Such are never superfluous ; a time may
not he distant when it can still less dispense with them,
even than at present ; and even now we presume to
think all the resources of the empire are not more than
necessary to its welfare and preservation.
Many other reasons might be adduced in proof of
the position^, that the first remedy proposed, of ame-
liorating the condition of Ireland by expatriating
numbers of its people, never did aforetime, nor will
at present, conduce to that end ; but, on the contrary,
would inevitably aggravate the distresses under which
it has long continued to labour.
§ VIII. (1.) The second proposition of our politi-
cal economists in favour of that country, is, the en-
larging, or, as formerly expressed, the " engrossing"
of farms, by annihilating the small tenures which are
at present numerous in that country : which operation
has now a particular term to express it, and is called
^* clearing ;" a very emphatic phrase, as connected
with its consequences. Hume somewhere says, " the
comparison between the management of human be-
ings and cattle is shocking;" but what terms can
convey the natural disgust one feels when the compa-
rison is between human beine^s and vermin r The
§ VIII.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 93
rage, however^ is for '^'^ clearing" estates in Ireland from
these human vermin^ as a meritorious sort of act, and
the chief means of relieving the country ; the proposal
must consequently he examined a little.
(2.) As to the cruelty of this scheme^ it far exceeds
the former one. In order duly to estimate it, we must
attend for a moment to the condition in which the
little agricultural tenant is placed. Unlike all others,
whatever be their industrious pursuits^ he is virtually
at the mercy of one individual_, his landlord ; and if
that fails him_, he is at once bereft of the means of
subsistence, of his daily labour, and of the house that
shelters him and his family ; which, if he be an Irish
tenant, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, he built
himself^; — in a word, deprived at once of the benefit
of his past exertions, and of all his future hopes. But
when a number of such are " cleared" at once (to
adopt the significant phrase used in the Emigration
Committee^ and which we learn is now the true
patriotic practice) ; a crowd comprised, of course, of
both sexes and of every period of life^ from helpless
infancy to decrepit age, including those in the prime
of their days, to whom, however^ health and youth are
of no avail, for there is no employment to be obtained,
nor any refuge or relief to be found for the wanderers ;
I question whether the broad eye of God beholds upon
the fiice of the earth a greater mass of misery than is
constantly created by these " clearances." Could we
take from them a single case, and trace its history,
from the expulsion of the unfortunate wretch from his
' See Right Hon. Charles Grant's Speech on the Stale of
Irchind, April 22, 1822; Hansard, vol. vi. p. 1.507.
94 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [§ VIII.
native home, ^^ through all his wanderings round this
world of care," as his own beautiful poet expresses
himself, — driven from place to place, and branded as a
fugitive and a vagabond everywhere, till his pilgrimage
in search of employment and of bread closes, perhaps,
in another hemisphere, amidst strangers, who " give
him a little earth for charity," — I am persuaded few of
those high-wrought cases of fictitious distress which oc-
casionally awake our ready sympathies could approach
the touching^ reality which the story would present.
The difference, therefore, between emigrations and
these clearances is, that the latter exhibit a far more
summaiy and unfeeling method of effectuating the
same purpose. In the former case "the simple folk"
are to be solicited, and in some sort bribed out of
the country ; means of escape are placed within their
reach; allotments in a land flowing with milk and
honey are proffered, (though, alas ! many of those who
have gone forth, have perished in the wilderness) ; but
in these drivings, "clearances," or whatever they may be
called, the exile is involuntary. Whatever be the nature
of the crime in the eyes of those who hold that "they
have no business to be where they are V and who act
upon that opinion, the punishment is, in fact, a severer
form of that which is in most cases awarded as the
sentence upon felony. Political economy has, on the
one hand, inveighed against a large population, and,
on the other, against small farms ; and its converts
have acted upon the palatable doctrine. The population
have been expelled from their native fields like a drove
of oxen, driven they knew not where, and withstood
' Malthus, Essay, p. 531.
'^ VIII.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 95
wherever they have attempted to take refuge. The
fires have been quenched upon thousands of hearths,
and the ploughshare now drives over the foundations
of many a humble abode^ which was once the refuge of
peace and happiness. Some of the wretched sur-
vivors may, perhaps, linger amongst the ruins of their
former habitations ; but most of them have to seek
refuge elsewhere, some in this country, some across
the Atlantic ; whither they were conveyed in vessels
more crowded than slave-ships, in which many of
them constantly expired, till even the humanity of
strangers was excited, and the legislature of America
interfered in their behalf, to protect them on their
passage, and succour the survivors on their arrival ^
These became the slaves and drudges of America^, till
premature death, in some form or other, and generally
in its most appalling one, poverty and desolation, ter-
minates their hapless story ^ This may be deemed an
overcharged statement; in many cases it is far other-
wise. One principal branch of the subject, which I
have elsewhere undertaken, has been to inquire into
the extent of emigration to America, in order to
answer the theory which is compelled, in defence of
its fancied doublings, to pronounce it " immaterial,"
and the examination has incidentally presented me
with this melancholy picture of the fate of the less
fortunate exiles of Erin, whom, for at least a century
past, these clearances have expelled from her sbores.
' " There were 246 Irish paupers in tlie New York workhouse,
April 1st, 1813."— (Dr. Dwight's Travels, vol. iii. p. 449.)
" The paupers in the United States are chietiy foreigners." —
(Warden, Statist. Ace. of the United States, vol. i. p. r>\ ; ii. p. 83.)
' I/nd. vol. iii. p. 192, &c. ^ Ibid. vol. i. i)p. 209, 269. 27 2, c"C'e.
96 IRELAND; ITS EVILS^ [§ VIII.
(3.) It would be well if those who are either the
advocates of clearing farms in Ireland, or the actors
in so cruel a scheme, would advert to the condition of
that country. They should recollect that, owing to
the rapacious conduct of too many of the landowners,
the cruel system of subletting, and, above all, the
base desertion of the country by those who derive their
all from it, no labour worth speaking of, except what
agriculture supplies, is demanded or encouraged in
Ireland. To expel a number of these tenants at once
is, therefore, to send them forth to certain destitution.
Such would be the casein England, were England simi-
larly circumstanced ; so it was, indeed, when she was
so in times past. Lord Bacon strongly inveighed
against '^ engrossing large pasturages ;" but, notwith-
standing humanity, policy, and even the legislature
then discouraged the evil, we find it was still preva-
lent, and its consequences were, what they now are,
deplorable in the extreme. Hear Sir Thomas More
on this intensely touching case : '^ Therefore is it,"
says he, " that one covetous and unsatiable cormorant,
and very plague of his native country, may compass
about and enclose many thousand acres of ground
within one pale or hedge ; the husbandmen be thrust
out of their own, or else either by covin and fraud, or
violent oppression, they be put besides it; or by
wrongs and injuries they be so wearied, that they be
compelled to sell all. By one means, therefore, or by
other, either by hook or by crook, they must needs
depart away, — poor, silly, Avretched souls ! men, wo-
men, husbands, wives, fatherless children, widows,
woeful mothers with their young babes, and the whole
§ VIII.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 97
household, small in substance, and much in number
as husbandry requireth many hands. Away they
trudge, I say, out of their known and accustomed
houses, finding no place to rest in ; all their house-
hold stuff, which is very little worth, though it might
well abide the sale ; yet being suddenly thrust out,
they be constrained to sell it as a thing of nought.
And when they have wandered abroad till that be
spent, what can they then do but to steal, and then
justly, pardy, be hanged, or else go about a begging?
And yet then also they be cast into prison as vaga-
bonds, because they go about and work not ; whom
no man will set at work, though they never so wil-
lingly prefer themselves thereto ^"
So far the authority of More on the effects of
" clearing" in England in his time, which was before
other and sufficient sources of employment were
developed. To suppose that this intrepid patriot was
either ignorant of the cause of the distress that per-
vaded the kingdom at that period, or that he exagge-
rated its extent, would argue but little in favour of our
own knowledge of the history of the country. Of
these poor fugitives, who, as he tells us, were neces-
sitated to become purloiners, w^e learn that " 72,000
great and petty thieves were put to death in the reign
of Henry VIII ^." In Ehzabeth's time, we arc informed
"^ rogues were trussed up apace, and that there \vas
not a year commonly, wherein three or four hun-
dred of them were not devoured and eaten up by the
gallows in one place or another." Strype, speaking of
' More, Utopia, vol.i. pp. 59, 60,01.
* Hollingshed, Pescription of England, vol. i. p.l8G.
98 IRELAND ; ITS EVILS^ [§ VIII.
one county only, Somersetshire, says, " forty persons
had been there executed, in a year, for robberies, thefts,
and other felonies ; thirty-five burnt in the hand ; thirty-
seven whipped ; 183 discharged ; and that those that
were discharged were wicked and desperate persons.
Notwithstanding this great number of indictments,
the fifth part of the felonies committed in the county
were not brought to trial, — owing to the remissness
of the magistrates, or the foolish lenity of the people.
The rapines committed by the infinite number of the
wicked, wandering, idle people were intolerable to the
poor countrymen, and obliged them to a perpetual
watch of their sheepfolds, pastures, woods, and corn
fields. The other counties in England were in no
better condition than Somersetshire, and many of
them were even in a worse : there were at least three or
four hundred able-bodied vagabonds in every county,
who lived by theft and rapine ; and who sometimes met
in troops to the number of sixty, and committed spoil
on the inhabitants : if all the felons of this kind were
reduced to subjection, they would form a strong army r
the magistrates were awed, by the association and
threats of the confederates, from executing justice on
the offenders ^" Sir F. M. Eden quotes this passage
in his history of the poor, as exhibiting the state of
the kingdom at large, and plainly attributes it to want
of employment for ^^the superfluous hands which were
not required in agriculture*," owing to the ^' engross-
ments" Lord Bacon alludes to. I would simply direct
the consideration of our anti-populationists, especially
^ Strype, Annals, vol. iv. p. 290.
^ Eden, Hist, of the Poor, vol. i. pp. 110, 1 11 .
§ VIII. J AND THEIR REMEDIES. 09
those who arc busying themselves about Ireland, to
these facts ; the history of that unhappy country has .
continued to the > present day the practical comment
upon their pernicious principles: the same state of
things would assuredly have continued here^ if the
population, thus " driven," had not ultimately found
employment and bread, and by means which the sys-
tem at present adopted in Ireland necessarily with-
holds from her wretched inhabitants.
(4.) But as it respects that country, not only has
the entire system of administering the landed property,
especially that part of it called " clearing," inflicted
private wrongs of the most fatal character, but it has
been most assuredly the fruitful source of those
public outrages which have so long disfigured the
annals of that unhappy country. I am aware that
some Irish landlords, and their apologists, have very
dexterously attributed these outniges to the tithing
system, as if any body upon earth could believe that
such landlords as they generally are, in respect of nine-
tenths of the produce, would be kinder than ecclesi-
astical ones, were they put into possession of the
remaining tenth : but more concerning this proposi^
tion hereafter. To mention a few of these fatal dis-.
turbances and insurrections. That in Munster, in the
year 1760, originated in the oppressive treatment of
many landed proprietors, especially in their turning
adrift vast numbers^of the old tenantry of the province,
'* in order to throw many farms into one," to obtain,
if possible, a greater " surplus produce,'* to use the
phraseology of the day. Numbers were thus at
once deprived of their ancient holdings, probably the
II -2
100 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [§ VIII.
possessions of their forefathers : they were called level-
lers ; and several years elapsed before they were put
down, and not before many of them were indeed levelled
and put down for ever — laid in their native earth. One
of the Irish historians thus describes this insurrection :
" It was occasioned by the expulsion of great num-
bers of labouring peasants, destitute of any regular
means of subsistence by any other species of industry,
while those who remained unexpelled, or procured
small spots of ground, had no means of paying the
exorbitant rents, even by labour, the pay of which was,
by the smallness of the demand_, beyond all due pro-
portion low. The misery of these cottagers was com-
pleted when they were, by inclosures_, deprived of com-
monage, which to many had been at first allowed.
Numbers of them secretly assembled in the r.ight, and
vented their fury on objects ignorantly conceived to
be the causes of their misery ^" I hardly know whe-
ther this insurrection was the same with that of the
white-boys ; in their cause^ however, they were iden-
tified ; which was the intolerable oppression of the
landed proprietors ^. In 1763 and 1764, the hearts-of-
steel appeared. This fatal insurrection was likewise
excited by the cruelty of the same class^ exercised
through the medium of their subordinate agents^ the
middle-men, who demanded excessive fines, and racked
the old tenants to an extent utterly beyond their power
to pay. They were cleared. ^' The hapless peasants
being thus abandoned, gave way to the impulse of their
> Gordon, Hist, of Ireland, vol.ii. pp. 240, 241.
^ Campbell, Phil. Survey of Ireland, p. 304. Wakefield's Account
of Ireland, vol. ii. p. 9.
§VIII.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 101
ungovernable passions, and vented their fury on those
whom they considered as their oppressors. These
commotions" — (I am quoting Mr. Wakefield at pre-
sent) " afford a striking and melancholy proof of the
country at the time they took place : and as they arose
from causes unconnected with public measures, may
convince those who ascribe every evil they experience
to the government, that national misfortunes depend
more 07i the conduct of individuals than is general Ij/
believed or admitted^ T To pass over many minor dis-
turbances, the Right'Boi/s appeared in about 1786,
and marched in hostile bodies of hundreds, and some-
times thousands. The real origin of this insurrection
may be best given in the words of the then attorney-
general of Ireland, the Right Honourable John Fitz-
gibbon, who declared in his place in the Irish com-
mons house on that occasion, that though tithes had
been mentioned as the cause of it, yet such was not
the fact, but that it arose from " the peasants being
ground down to powder by exorbitant rents, w ho were
so far from being able to pay their dues to the clergy,
that they possessed not food or raiment for them-
selves." In a word, he boldly threw the wretchedness,
misery, and guilt he described, at the door of their in-
exorable landlords *. These were again cleared and
put down. I shall not attempt to enumerate the whole
of these events ; but will only mention another case
of a public nature ; the private and individual suf-
ferings inflicted by this system are of course never
heard of or recorded. The manner in which the
' Wakefield, Account of Ireland, vol. ii. pp. 0, 10.
' Gordon, Hist, of Irehnd, vol. li. pp. 299, 300.
102 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [§ VIII.
tenantry on the estates of a great Irish absentee in the
county of Limerick have been recently treated, caused
those disturbances which have but lately terminated. We
may judge how widely ^^ the peace of a county would be
affected, \^h«a a body of twenty thousand tenantry were
thrown into astate of furious agitation*." The eminent
statesman I quote_, who was for a considerable time
officially connected with the country, fully sanctions
me in all I have said. Speaking of "the commotions
which for the last sixty years have toniiented and deso-
lated Ireland/' he pronounces that " they all sprung
immediately from local oppressions^."
Finally, then, who can doubt but that the elements
of the late Irish rebellion, whatever might be the mo-
tives of the prime agitators, were that neglect, and
cruelty^, and oppression, and consequent poverty and
distress_, under which the peasantry of Ireland had
groaned for so many generations ; when, in addition
to many public and political wrongs, fkncied or real,
so vast a number were smarting under the severer
inflictions of private injuries, or treasuring up the
remembrance of such as had been perpetrated upon
others dear to them, their parents, their families, their
friends. I have heard many, who, maintaining most
strongly the evident superiority of the protestant faith
and form of worship_, as well as the unrivalled privi-
» Speech of the Right Hon. Charles Grant, in the House of
Commons, April 22, 1822. Hansard's Pari. Debates, vol. vi.
p. 1504. .
^ Ibid. p. 1505. For further proofs that absenteeism is the remote
cause of these outrages, and invariably impedes their cure, see all
the recent reports on that country. — (State of Ireland, 4th Report,
pp. 550, 551, 573. Minutes of Evidence before the Lords, 1824 ;
pp. 8, 207, 376, &c.)
§ VIU.] AND TIIEIU REMEDIES. 103
leges of the British constitution^ have expressed their
astonishment that the belief in the one, and attach-
inent to the other_, have not spread more generally,
and, indeed, become universal. A moment's consi-
deration, however, may abate their surprise : it is
quite sufficient to explain, that such are the religion
and government_, supported by nine-tenths, perhaps,
of the great proprietors of Ireland. Not another
word is necessary.
(5.) But it abundantly suffices to plead, not only in
extenuation, but in full justification of this conduct,
and all its fatal consequences, that the proprietors of
Ireland, in driving the little tenantry from their
farms, and clearing the country of as many inha-
bitants as possible, are only acting on the plainest
principles of political economy ; which would have
the country possessed, if it had its way, in some such
manner as a master of the ceremonies would people a
ball-room, that is, by a select few ; though it is not
quite clear how, in either case, the many could be
dispensed with. Agriculture was the first to imbibe
this palatable doctrine, and will, I fear, be the first to
suffer by it. Its short-sighted friends have invariably
admitted, that a minute system of cultivation is by far
the most productive ; but they hold, that what they
call the " surplus produce" is greater, the larger the
farms, or, in other words, the fewer persons are
employed upon the same extent of land. Even sup-
posing this were the fact, which, however, I entirely
disbeheve, do they think the question is to be thus
speedily decided, on a mere principle of self-interest ?
Supposing they can make it out clearly that one half
104 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [§ VIII.
the hands now employed in cultivating the land would,
if the moiety were turned adrift, leave rather more
surplus produce than is now obtained, it must be ob-
vious that that moiety must take refuge somewhere;
the manufacturing districts must receive them, most of
which, it is alleged, and I fear truly, are oveipeopled
at present, and from the operation of this very cause.
So far, perhaps, it will be said, that the owners of
land have a perfect right to do what they will with
their own ; which is a notion I shall not now pause to
discuss, further than to say, that it has probably been the
apology for more cruelty and oppression than all other
excuses put together. But then, when these gentle-
men have driven forth nearly all the little yeomanry,
and many of the labourers who have to follow other
and less natural pursuits, they refuse to allow these
in turn to do what they will with their own : on the
contrary, after having, without either pity or remorse,
expelled them from their ancient homes, and torn
asunder every other tie, they are nevertheless fully
bent on retaining their mercenary grasp upon them,
and consequently demand that they should lay out
with them all their earnings in their new callings,
though they will not give them, perhaps, one half of
the provision for the same sum that they could pro-
cure from those foreigners, on whom they have ren-
dered them dependent for employment and for bread.
Let me not be misunderstood. I am an advocate for
protecting every branch of British industry that needs
protection, and agriculture above all, as the most ne-
cessary, permanent, and profitable kind of labour ; but
i^t for a system which will calculate to a grain whe-
§ VIII.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 105
ther the same tract which sustains in comfort, peace,
and happiness a hundred thousand human beings,
might not yield a greater surplus, were half of them
dispossessed, no matter what became of them ; an in-
quiry which I never yet saw pursued, either by those
who make these proposals, or those who act upon them.
But let them only recollect, that those whom they
expel have still mouths_, and must be fed ; and I think
it may perhaps strike them, that, on national prin-
ciples, these computations may be erroneous, however
correct they seem in the estimation of individual
selfishness.
(6.) But I hope I have been able to show, through-
out this work^, that our individual interests, duly and
permanently considered, are identified with those of
the community, and that prosperity, public as well as
private, rests upon the solid foundation of humanity.
I would therefore remark that the plan of accumu-
lating farms has not answered. The inducements
held out to the proprietors have been falsified ; and,
in these trying times, they will appear more fallacious
every day. With the exception, perhaps, of the
better preservation of game (and that may often
be doubted), in all other respects they have been pre-
judicial to the owners. Smaller rents are invariably
paid for the larger farms ^5 and those rents, in bad
' Alluding to that about to be publisbed, of which the present
treatise forms a part, as before mentioned.
^ Complete English Farmer, p. 57. Winifrey's Rural Improve-
ments, pp. 289, 291, 409. Farmer's Letters, p. 121. Ency-
clopedia Britannica, Supplement, Art. Caithness. Col, AVood-
house. Times, May 7, 1822, &c. Dr. Macculloch, Highlands,
p. 28G. In this work the cruelty of " clearing," as well as its im-
policy, is forcibly pourtrayed. If then the smaller farms pay a
106 IRELAND; ITS EVILS^ [§ VIII.
times, are paid with far less punctuality and cer-
tainty: but, above all^ the immense increase of the
poor rates in the agricultural districts_, since these
monopolies have .prevailed, and wherever they do
prevail (which the occupiers are perpetually urging
on the consideration of their . landlords, and which
certainly materially affect the interests of the latter*),
infinitely outweighs the paltry saving of keeping a
few farm-houses in repair. I beseech the great landed
proprietors of England, whom I believe to be, as a
class, the most humane to their dependents of any
description of persons, perhaps, in the world, to
reconsider this important question. Let them con-
sider the fallacious inducements which have been held
forth to them, utterly to destroy one of the most inte-
resting ranks of our countrymen, the yeomanry, thereby
evidently diminishing their own numerical and real
influence in the community. It was said by agents,
who did not relish the trouble of a numerous
tenantry^, — by farmers who, in the times of high
prices, like so many Naboths, coveted their humble
neighbour's little possessions, that the lesser culti-
vators would be far better off as labourers. Have
such kept their word of promise either to the ear, the
sense, or the heart ? They have not ! If we can credit
the uncontradicted jevidence laid before a committee
larger proportionate rent, and pay it more punctually, what is the
fact, but a demonstration that such raise a larger, instead of a
smaller, surplus produce ? To assert the contrary is one of the
absurdities with which the modern system is loaded, and of which
this doctrine is as glaring an instance as that of the present notion
on absenteeship.
' Report on Labourers' Wages, p. 57.
^ See the Earl of Winchelsea's communication to the Board of
Agriculture, vol. i. p. 84.
§ VIII.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 107
of the house of commons, it is a melancholy truth
that such labourers are in little better condition than
those of Ireland, having not a taste of animal food,
perhaps, in a month, and subsisting, by whole parishes,
if not counties together, upon public charity ^ !
Meantime what has been gained? A once happy
village converted into a desolate habitation of pau-
pers, and the destruction of one of our most interest-
ing classes, compensated for by the creation of two
or three nondescripts, who, as wisely as their betters,
attribute the misery by which they are surrounded to
early marriages and a redundant population ^
(7.) Though I trust I have been enabled to show else-
where the infinite superiority, in every point of view, of
minute cultivation ; yet, in respect to Ireland, as the
question at this moment involves the home, bread,
and life itself of multitudes of our fellow-subjects, I
will again allude to it. I shall not, however, now
enter upon the subject minutely or scientifically, but
content myself at present with appealing to the
experience of mankind, in past and present ages, who
upon this matter, whatever may have been their dark-
ness (as some suppose) on all others, cannot possibly
have been ignorant. Without recurring to the ex-
amples of Judea and Greece ^ I shall but slightly
mention that of Rome, where, in its better days, agri-
culture was illustrated by genius, and ennobled by
' Report on Labourers' Wages, 1824. * Ibid. p. 30.
' The area of Judea, reduced into English acres, and divided by
the number of the inhabitants, all of whom were agricultural, will
fully prove the early practice and the wonderful effects of minute
cultivation. If this appeal be disallowed, the same facts, relative
to the principal Grecian states, will afford the same demoustration.
— (See particularly Boeckh's Athens, vol ii. p. 2-iS.)
108 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [§VIII.
station, beyond what it has ever been since. The
shares represented as sufficient for the maintenance of
a Roman citizen^ tried in early life, my historical faith ;
and tlie farm of a Cincinnatus, and others, were to
me as so many splendid fables. I have now seen my
error, and, in gratefully subscribing to my own igno-
rance, bow to the sufficiency of nature, and the
creative energies of the representative of the Deity —
man : neither of which, I will venture to say, have
had their productive powers fully developed, though
it has been the most pleasing part of a long and labo-
rious task to record indubitable instances of the
almost miraculous development of both, especially
as evidenced in the humbler walks of life \ Without
professing much erudition, I think I may venture to
assert that the best days of Rome were those when
the lands of Italy were the most minutely cultivated ;
and that the monopoly w^hich ensued was the pre-
cursor and, indeed, the occasion of the ruin of the
empire. But the poets, the philosophers, and the
patriots of Rome, unanimous on this point, sung and
wrote and pleaded in vain ; the panders of wealth, the
political economists of the day, prevailed. It was,
doubtless, the policy of these to recommend that the
lands of Italy should go out of cultivation, that pro-
perty should be engrossed, and that the people should
be supplied by importation ; and they had this argu-
ment in their favour, of which their successors are
totally destitute, — the countries from whence they
derived their supplies were provinces of the empire,
and at their command. They prevailed ; and one of
' In the Treatise about to be published.
§ VIII.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 109
their noblest historians^ Tacitus^ laments that the
lands of Italy were passing out of cultivation, and that
the Hves of the Roman citizens were dependent upon
foreign suppHes, and placed at the mercy of the winds
and waves. On the subject of minute cultivation,
the Roman agricultural writers, who form a pecu-
liarly interesting class of authors^, were unanimous ^ :
times, however, are wonderfully changed, since the
cultivator of an estate from which a dictator of the
world was called, would now be deemed, if in Ireland,
a proper object to be '^ cleared," and, if here, a can-
didate for the workhouse ! But_, as such allusions to
past times may perhaps rather weaken than fortify
the argument, with those to whom I would address
myself, in behalf of minute cultivation_, I shall appeal
to the present experience of mankind, in those coun-
tries where it is at this moment being put to the
strictest test. Our statesmen are constantly in the
habit of instancing the policy of foreign countries on
far less important topics than that of the best means of
sustaining in plenty and contentment an overflowing
population ; this must be my apology, if any be
* One only of these I beg leave to quote, confident that what he
records illustrates a principle which human experience in all ages
and countries has fully illustrated and confirmed : *' Refert Groe-
cinus in libro de vineis, ex patre suo soepe se audire solitum,
Paridium quendam duas filias, et vineis consitum habuisse fun-
dum, cujus partem tertiam, nubenti majori filiie dedisse in dotem,
ac nihilo minus oeque magnos fructus ex duabus partibus ejusdem
fundi percipere solitum. Minorem deinde filiam nuptui collocasse
in dimidia parte reliqui agri. Ncc sic ex pristino reditu detrax-
isse. Quod quid conjicit ? Nisi melius scilicet postca cultam esse
tertiarn illam fundi partem quamantea universam." — (Columella, de
Re Uustica, 1. iv. c. 3.) Nor is this more tiian a practical comment
on the principle laid down by a much earlier agricultural writer,
indeed the very earliest extant : TrXeov vnia-v Truiloi.
no IRELAND ; ITS EVILS, [§ VIII.
necessary, in referring to the practice of those coun-
tries, where the smallest surface suffices to sustain
the largest numbers, and where, consequently, the
most perfect system of culture necessarily prevails.
(8.) Doubtless the little state of Lucca is the most
densely populated independent district in the civilized
world, and as such I have selected it, wherewith to
commence this practical demonstration. There are*
between three and four hundred inhabitants on the
square mile throughout. It was, even in Addison's
days, the most thickly peopled state in Italy ^;
and, as the laws of nature have equally operated
every where, and at all times, except where they have
been withstood, its condition corresponded. His
description of it is as follows : *' It is very plea-
sant to see how the small territories of this little
republic are cultivated to the best advantage, so that
one cannot find the least spot of ground that is not
made to contribute its utmost to the owner. — In all
the inhabitants there appears an air of cheerfulness
and plenty, not often to be met with ^." Perhaps it
may be supposed that Addison knew nothing of
cultivation ; he could not, of course, compare it with
the present practice. A late writer, and one fully
competent on this point, will dispose of this objec-
tion. " The little state of Lucca," Forsyth says, " is
so populous, that very few acres, and those subject
to inundation, are allotted to each farmer in the plain.
Hence their superior skill in agriculture and drain-
ing ; hence that variety of crops in every enclosure,
which gives to the vale of Serchio the economy and
' Addison, Italy, p. 308. "^ Ibid. p. 306.
§ VIII.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. Ill
show of a large kitchen gardem." Would the advo-
cates for large farms in this country pay their land-
lords the rent the Lucchese do? That rent is two-
thirds of the whole produce, together with other
enormous burdens. The author I have just quoted,
after bringing proofs of the superiority of minute
cultivation, from a variety of quarters and different
periods, expresses his convictions as to the agricul-
tural state of Italy, which affords so great a variety,
as to its population and the size of its farms, in these
words : " Every state in the Peninsula is pro-
ductive, OR otherwise, in proportion to the
NUMBER OF FARMERS ON A GIVEN SPACE OF LAND,
EauALLY GOOD^" Nor is this the opinion of our
own countrymen merely, but, as far as I know, of
every intelligent foreigner who has written on the
subject. I would request the reader to refer to
Sismondi's account of the agriculture of Tuscany
and shall now only quote one other author, who
informs his readers that he did not traverse Italy in
order to speak of its edifices, its cities, or its monu-
ments, but to relate its rural history, and to describe
how its fields are cultivated, I mean Chateauvieux.
To the whole work of this highly gifted writer I
must refer ; it will well repay the trouble of the
perusal, by the pleasure as well as the instruction it
will aflbrd. It establishes, as it respects that most
interesting country, the fact, beyond contradiction,
that large farms, of which there are many of a vast
size in Italy, compared with the small ones, of which
happily there are more, invariably exhibit the most
' Forsyth, Remarks on Italy, pp. 31, 32. * Ibid.
112 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [§ VIII.
slovenly, imperfect, and unproductive cultivation*;
while agriculture in detail is invariably crowned with
health, plenty, and happiness. He notices that the
general custom in Italy is to give half the produce in
kind as rent^ : I again ask our large farmers if they
could agree to this^? He gives it as his estimate,
that notwithstanding the density of the population of
some of these rural districts where minute cultiva-
tion prevails, at least three-fourths of the produce is
brought to market ^ Is this surplus produce ? I
wish I might quote from this author more at large,
as his evident knowledge of the subject would then
give his deliberate opinion the greater weight.
'' This system," he says, speaking of minute culture,
^' possesses the advantage of bringing the greatest
quantity of produce to market. I make this asser-
tion in opposition to Arthur Young, who attributes
this advantage exclusively to large farms. But from
the accounts just presented, it is evident, in the
first place_, that the subdivision of the farms increases
at the same time the number of plantations, gardens,
and farm yards ; by which means abundance of minor
produce is obtained which is lost upon a large farm.
I am of opinion that not any country brings so large
a proportion of its produce to market as Piedmont."
(The population in Piedmont is 222 on the square
mile, in Great Britain 162.) " The number of farms
in Piedmont is surprising, and yet this limited coun-
^ Chateauvieux, Description of the Rural Manners and Economy
of Italy, pp. 55, 86, 88, 89, 90. ^ Ibid. pp. 4, 15, 32.
^ We learn from other quarters, that where the metairie system
does not prevail, the rents of little farms, paid in money, would
be here regarded as very high. — (Hallam, Letters from Italy.)
* Chateauvieux, Travels in Italy, &c. p. 8.
§ VIII.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 113
try, having a great part of its surface occupied by
mountains^ after satisfying its own wants, supplies
the territory of Genoa, Nice, and even the port of
Toulon with corn and cattle." (Is there anything
in the way of '* surplus produce " like this, excepting
the instance of poor Ireland ?) " Without making
an exact calculation, it is evident from this statement
that there must be a superfluity of produce in the
country, which must be attributed to its rural eco-
nomy rather than to its direct fertility, for the average
return of corn in Piedmont is not quite six for one*."
That economy he explains in one word — minute culti-
vation ; and adds, on this subject, "^ the superiority
of the agriculture and rural economy beyond that of
perhaps every other country, and the phenomena of
its great population and extensive exportation of pro-
duce, will no longer appear extraordinary^." The
farms of Tuscany, he observes^ are not more than
from three to ten acres, (paying one half the produce
as rent) : he dwells upon their extraordinary produc-
tiveness, which he justly attributes to the thickly
planted habitations ^ He notices most emphatically
that "Italy supplies the political economist with les-
sons of wisdom "*;" ours, however, would denominate all
such the ravings of folly. Fie remarks upon the fatal
effects of depopulation on the happiness and pros-
perity, and especially the health of various parts of the
peninsula ; the latter he invariably connects with mi-
nute cultivation'^: that where the population disappears,
the destruction of the class of consumers soon ruins
' Chatcauvicux, Description, &c. p- 8.
' Ibid. p. 11 . •■' Ibid. p. 32. ' Ibid. p. 93. ^ Ibid. p. 90.
I
114 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [§VliI.
in return that of the producers; and contrasts this
state of things with those districts where numbers
create plenty and prosperity ^ I wish I could
insert his beautiful description of the reclamation of
the marsh in the Val di Chiana, consisting of about
three thousand acres belonging to the religious order
of St. Stephen. It seemed the most natural to throw
the whole into one grand domain, with a suitable man-
sion in the centre. But the Tuscans knew better
than thus to consign it to languor and inactivity.
They divided it into a number of small farms, the
extraordinary productiveness of which (for he visited
it in time of harvest), and the happy occupation of
the numerous families, its inhabitants, he describes
in a most pleasing manner. It just strikes me,
that, if the protestant order of St. Stephen's in this
country would follow the example of the Italian one,
and reclaim an Irish bog by way of trial, and thus
parcel it out amongst a number of meritorious inha-
bitants, the experiment might be better worth ha-
zarding, notwithstanding the uproar it would certainly
create amongst the political economists, than spend-
ing ten times the sum in expatriating an equal
number of the people^. But I must refrain from
further quotation of this interesting author : every
word of what he has written bears upon the argu-
ment in hand, and is the more valuable as proceeding
from one whose business it was to make these obser-
vations, and evidently qualified for the task, by a
thorough acquaintance with agriculture, theoretically
' Chateauvieux, Travels, p. 50.
' There would then be security for capital, rent, &c.
§ VIII.] AND THEIR REVfEDIES. 115
and practically. In a country the most calculated of
all others to put the practice to the test, in which
every several district presented a demonstration of
the principle^ he found the ancient agricultural polity,
which is that of nature and of providence, fully justi-
fied ; and health, plenty^ and prosperity connected
with the cultivation of the surface of the earth, in,
comparatively speaking, minute subdivisions.
(9.) But of all the examples of successful cultiva-
tion the world holds forth, at least in modern times,
that of the Netherlands is unquestionably the most
interesting and important. Little^ it is true, has been
written on agriculture by the Flemings, its having
been their policy, as it is thought, to conceal their
superior georgics as much as possible ; but it has been
know for centuries past, that the modes of culture
practised there have been superior to those of all other
countries ; those who wished for improvement in this
most important branch of human industry, therefore,
had to proceed thither, and personally observe their
methods. This has been the practice with many for
ages past, and hence the various essential improve-
ments, whether in reference to the due and constant
rotation of crops, the use of artificial grasses, the
best stercoraceous system, — in fact, all that conduces
to successful farming have been successively intro-
duced into other countries : in a word, Flanders has
been the university of agriculture. No wonder is it,
therefore, that, in so elaborate a work as the Ency-
clopaedia Britannica, we are specially directed to the
closest consideration of the agriculture of that country.
I wish, in the article on general agriculture, the prac-
I '2
116 IRELAND; ITS EVILS^ [^Vlll.
tice of this particular district had not heen too much
lost sight of^ in reference to the system of extensive
farms ; my observations on the subject would then have
been rendered unnecessary. It is unhappily other-
wise. But, to quote from the Supplement ; in the arti-
cle on the Netherlands, the subject is thus prefaced :
" The agriculture of the Netherlands, which, even in
the northern portion, that was formerly the Seven
United Provinces, was more the foundation of its
WEALTH THAN EITHER MANUFACTURES OR NAVIGATION,
deserves the most close examination ; and merits
more detailed accounts than our limits will allow \"
That the agricultural economy of this country de-
mands the deepest consideration, especially in these
times and in this country_, in which so much is said
about excessive population in reference to the means
of subsistence, and (theoretically) about the principles
of political economy, is manifest, for these important
reasons :
1. The kingdom of the Netherlands is the most
densely peopled of any considerable countiy upon earth.
2. Its soil, notwithstanding that its amazing pro-
duce has been the means of spreading a very contrary
notion, is, on the unanimous authority of all writers
who have examined it, the reverse of prolific ; nay,
compared with that of the surrounding countries, it is
naturally untractable, sterile, and bad^.
^ Encyc. Brit., Supplement, vol. vi. p. 66.
^ Abbe Mann, on the Husbandry of the Netherlands, in Com-
munications to the Board of Agriculture, vol.i. p. 238. Baron de
Poederle ; ibid. p. 247. Puffendorf 's Introd. Hist. Europe, p. 261 .
Dr. Harte, Essays on Husbandry, pp. 69, 177. Louis Buonaparte,
Ex-King of Holland, Historical Documents, &c., pp. 14, 16. Many
others might be added. I shall thus sum up these authorities ;
§ viri.] AND THEIR rp:mkdies. 117
3. That soil, though by no means universally cul-
tivated, has sufficed to feed and maintain its immense
population, and perhaps in more comfortable circum-
stances, generally speaking, than those of any other
country ; and to sustain^ likewise, the poor^ and per-
haps^ on the whole, quite as well as in England.
4. The surplus produce (to use the fashionable
term) of the rural population must be very great,
from the circumstance of so vast a number of the in-
habitants living in the cities and towns of the king-
dom ; but, to end all uncertainty as to estimates
founded on internal calculations, —
5. " No country in Europe provides from its soil
so great a quantity of sustenance, not only for its in-
habitants, but so large a surplus of food for exporta-
tion_, and such valuable commodities to exchange for
articles of foreign growth, as Flanders ^"
6. So great has been that surplus, that it has of
late occasioned considerable distress to the cultivators,
in that they have not been enabled to dispose of the
whole of it elsewhere^; in the meantime^ it is impor-
tant to observe^ that they applied for and obtained
protection against foreign competition in their own
markets. " In the year 1824^ they petitioned the king
of the Netherlands, with a view to protection, to pro-
hibit the importation of foreign grain;" but in lieu of
" The land of Flanders was not naturally fertile : on the contrary,
the quality of it is such as merely to admit of fertilization, by a
series of operations more or less expensive and laborious. ^Vhere
cultivation has not been extended, the soil produces nothing but
heath and fir." — (Encyc. Brit., Supplement, vol. vi. p. 86.)
' Encyc. Brit., Sup., Netherlands, p. 68.
* Jacob, Travels in Holland, isLC. pp. 61), 70.
118 IRELAND; ITS EVILS^ [§VIII.
that he imposed, in anticipation_, an increase in the
duty upon it, afterwards confirmed hy the legislature,
amounting to four hundred per centum, compared with
that fixed eight years before K Our government has,
of late years, been pursuing an opposite policy; how
wisely, remains to be seen, or rather is now becoming
apparent. I think Mr. Jacob clearly points out, in a
book published but a little before his celebrated " Re-
port," some cogent reasons, as yet unanswered, why
the British agriculturist, compared with the Dutch,
demands far greater protection^.
I cannot forbear withdrawing the attention of the
reader from the immediate object in view, in order to
point out how sorry a figure the principle of popula-
tion, which I am opposing in this work, cuts, in the
very arena w^here it ought to triumph. Look at the
Netherlands, the most densely peopled kingdom upon
earth ; and of which Mr. Malthus has somewhere
said, or at least of Holland, that it does not keep up
its numbers by procreation, but is the grave-yard of
Germany ; possessing a soil by no means fertile, nor
yet wholly cultivated : — have the tendencies and ratios
which I shall not restate, having already had so often
to repeat them, been manifested there ? Alas ! for
the mingled folly and falsehood of such a state-
ment : the distress, if, generally speaking, there be any,
we are assured arises, not from over-population_, but
over-production^, an evil which the true principle of
* Parliamentary Papers relative to regulations existing in foreign
countries in respect of the export and import of grain, Feb. 19,
1827, pp. 18, 19, 20.
^ Jacob, Travels in Holland, &c. p. 69.
'Ibid. pp. 8,47, 52,70, &c.
§ Vlir.j AND THEIR REMEDIES. 119
human increase will redress, instead of aggravatinir,
as some ignorantly argue.
(10.) To come_, then^ to the immediate subject.
Seeing these facts, which are in themselves so impor-
tant and decisive, and sent, as we are, on all hands,
to this interesting part of the world, in order to have
the clearest insight into the best methods of produc-
tive agriculture : let us ask, what is the practice of
the Netherlanders in regard of the size of farms? It
requires but little research to satisfy ourselves on this
point. The farms, with hardly any exceptions, are
universally small; small, not merely in comparis'>n
with many which disgrace our present system, but
with ours in former times, a generation or two ago, in
the days of the honest yeomanry of England. In
Arthur Young's Annals of Agriculture, we see those
consisting of thirty or forty acres spoken of as consi-
derable ; there were many, it is observed, of greater
extent, but then there were those which could not
keep a horse, and where the whole business was exe-
cuted by the spaded In some of the remoter and
more sterile districts, larger tracts may be allowed
to be in possession of the same individual ; but
even then, there are few farms which would be
called large in England ; while, in the more fertile
and best managed districts, the land is cultivated in
very small allotments, almost universally^, and these,
it is observed, diminish in size as the country becomes
' Young, Annals of Agriculture, vol. i. pp. •222 — 251.
' Abbe JNIann, Communications to ibe Board, &c. vol.i. pp. 224,
233, 245. Baron Pccderle ; ihid. p. 252. KadcliH'b Report
on the Agriculture of Flanders, pp. 44, 92, 227.
120 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [§VIII.
richer. But, as it is obviously impossible for me to
enter minutely into this branch of the subject, how-
ever important, I will at once select the most produc-
tive and best cultivated district of this fruitful country
by which to put the question to the test. The Abbe
Mann, writing at a late period, says, " The agricul-
ture of the Pays de Waes passes, without contestation,
for the most complete and perfect in all the Nether-
lands ^" This district, Mr. RadclifF, in his "Report
of the Agriculture of Flanders," says, *^ is of merited
celebrity, and obviously beautiful to the eye, in
the garden-like appearance of its cultivation," exhi-
biting an unrivalled unity of system and operation^
The major part of the farms, " in the country of Waes,
which comprehends an extensive tract of Flanders,
consist only of six or seven boniers, and many only
of three or fourV' "The bonier may be reckoned
three English acres'*;" consequently their size varies
from about nine to eighteen acres. " The farms
being so very small, few horses are kept in the land of
Waes ; the ground is chiefly worked with the spade
and hoe^. All these contribute, together, to give a
' Abbe Mann, Communications, &c. vol. i.
' RadclifF, Report of the Agric. of the Netherlands, p. 181.
3 Baron Foederis, Communications, &c. vol. i. p. 255.
* Abb6 Mann, Communications, &c., p. 224.
^ It is a pleasing sight to observe a row, consisting of the cultiva-
tor and his family, pursuing the system of spade husbandry, the
lesser branches of it busy following the trenches, and planting,
sowing, or manuring; more pleasing still to observe the luxuriant
produce with which this persevering industry is attended, and
most gratifying of all to trace its effects to the comfort it bestows
upon the cultivator, and the overflowing plenty it confers on the
community. In these observations I draw no conclusions fa-
vourable, or otherwise, to mere spade husbandry ; but apply
^ VIII.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 121
richness and fertility to the soil of this tract, which
surpasses almost what can be imagined. No spot Hes
uncultivated. Fallow ground is unknown ^" '^ There
are three crops in two years ^." Another quotation,
from the same authority, is most interesting, as illus-
trative of the effects of population on the quality of
the land, as well as the condition of the people. The
Abbe Mann says, "The original soil was pure sand,
and its present state of fertility is owing to the great
number of its industrious inhabitants, who cultivate
a few acres round their dwellings, of which, foi the
most part, they are proprietors \" Baron Poederle
concurs in attributing the great fertility of this cele-
brated district to its great population*.
I must further remark, that this system of minute
cultivation is not the result of accident, as is so often
alleged in reference to Ireland, but of deliberate
preference and choice. It has been the principle of
Belgic legislation to encourage it^ ; ^^ the government
which has so much at heart all the minutest interests
of agriculture^," has " passed ordinances in some
provinces for restraining the extent of farms, and pre-
scribing a division of those of too great extent '^i"
them to the general argument in favour of continuing the pre-
sent small farm system where it still exists, and of returning to
it, where it is practicable, without inflicting injury on individuals ;
being convinced, to adopt the language of a very able and elegant
writer on agriculture, that "smaller shares are more capable of ad-
mitting a correct and accurate husbandry." — (Harte's Essays, p. 79.)
* Abbe Mann, Communications, &c., vol. i. p. 234.
^ Encyc. Brit., Supplement, vol. vi. p. 6Q.
3 Abbe Mann, Communications, &c., vol. i. p. 234.
* Baron Poederle, Communications, &c., vol. i. p. 247.
* Abbe Mann, Communications, &c., vol. i. p. 223.
^ RadclifF, Report on the Agric. of Flanders, p. QQ.
' Abb6 Mann, Communications, &c., vol. i. p. 223.
122 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [§Vlir.
"and expressly prohibiting the letting farm-houses
fall to rnin^ without rebuilding them, a thing many
proprietors seek, for the sake of sparing the expense
of rebuilding and repairs \" This is a very different
thing to government taxing the rebuilding of such, as
some in our Emigration Committee seem to propose ^
It may be thought, however, that quoting legislative
enactments carries but little weight to the argument,
such being not always founded on the most enlightened
principles ; but it must be observed that the govern-
ment, in thus acting, did not force, but follow public
opinion ; the superiority of small farms having been
proved by all those who had, in that country, directed
their attention to the subject and written upon it : in
deferring to their recorded opinions, the legislature,
therefore, pursued an enlightened as well as liberal
policy. I particularly allude to the Abbe Mann,
whom our Board of Agriculture consulted on the
husbandry of the Netherlands, which drew from him
that admirable memoir already quoted : in which
there is an allusion, in a note to his observations on
this important subject (so the Board confess it to be),
which, says their report, " may be seen in the library
of the British Museum ^ of the Royal Society, the
^ Abbe Mann, Communications, vol.i. p. 224.
- Emigration Report, third part, p. 323.
' The board says, this work may be seen in the library of the
British Museum. The difficulty, however, of obtaining access to
that institution the writer of this has fully experienced, but which
he has only shared with others, whose claims to admission to any
national institution, where literature is professedly patronised, are
far greater than his. The regulations are doubtless meant to
secure the property of the establishment, and are so far proper; but
it is doubtful whether they answer that purpose; while they certainly
operate to the exclusion of many who may live remote from the
§VIII.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 123
Society of Antiquaries, the Board of Longitude, &c.
&c." Happy would it have been for the agricultural
world, if it had been " seen" in their publications ; but
the principle it advocates did not coincide with the
fashionable and fatal practice they espoused, founded
on a principle of selfishness, as it regarded the clasa
that had to determine a question which affected the
happiness of thousands of families, and supported by
false representations respecting the interest of those
who were to be annihilated, as farmers, in order to
execute the design. And it has too well succeeded.
We may, however, still turn to the Netherlands, and
see a better system yet remaining, where the farms,
on the general average, are about the size of those
little takes which have been wrested from the cottagers
of England, by the large monopolists, under the pre-
tence, forsooth, that it injured the landlord, the culti-
x^ator, and the public. These being all the parties
concerned, it is worth while to examine these several
allegations, as it respects the agriculture of the
Netherlands.
As far as the landlord is concerned, this is stated to
be the effect. ^^The increase of population," says the
Baron Poederle, " since the peace of 1749, has greatly
diminished the size of farms, as well in Hainault as
elsewhere." (So it ought to have done every where, if
feeling, policy, or common sense had been consulted.)
^^ The proprietors, in dividing their estates y have almost
metropolis, and who, consequently, have not an equal facility in
obtaining the required introduction. He is bound, however, to
add, that nothing can exceed the attention of the officers, if by good
chance a stranger, resident at a distance from the capital, gain
admission.
124 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [§VIII.
doubled their value ; and Brabant has no occasion for
ordinances to that effect. The states of the province,
however, petitioned that the size of farms should be
settled ^*' That the smaller the farm is, the higher
in proportion is the rent, is true, not only there,
but in every country^ in England certainly^, and espe-
cially in Ireland*. How then is it possible to suppose
that small farms are otherwise than advantageous to
landlords, more especially in the latter country^ where
the tenants constantly build for themselves ? But to
return to the Netherlands.
What is the effect, secondly, of this minuter system
of cultivation on the occupiers ? We have beheld, in
our country, that the monopolizing system, by depriving
them of their farms, has made the little cultivators
paupers ; there the contrary practice has made them
proprietors! Hence we are told that "in Brabant
there is hardly any such thing as tenants ; each farmer
is a proprietor "*." Even where this is not the case^
the advantage of minute cultivation is still with the
tenant. Low as produce is in the Netherlands, and
heavy as are the rents ^ and taxes ^^ still an agriculturist
of the new school confesses that a Dutch boor, with
50 or 60 acres, will manage to live as well or better
than an English farmer with 200 acres '^. But to turn
again to the Pays de Waes, the most correctly culti-
' Baron Poederle, Communications, &c.
• - Complete English Farmer, p. 57. Farmer's Letters, vol. i. pp.
121, 122. De Re Rustica, vol. ii. p. 296.
^ Reports on the State of Ireland, passim. 4th Report, Select
Committee, pp. 413, 414, 415, 638. 1st Report, p. 50.
" Abbe Mann, Communications, &c. vol. i. p. 227.
* Marshall's Travels through Holland, &c., vol. i. pp. 164, 174.
" Ibid. p. 190. ' Ibid. p. 165.
§VJII.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 125
vatcd district^ it may be presumed, in the world; " they
cultivate a few acres round their dwellings, of which
they are for the most part the proprietors \" In
Arthur Young's Annals of Agriculture^ where he has
been recording the smallness of their farms, some of
which '^ do not employ a horse, but are entirely cuki-
vated by the spade and the hoe," the comment on
this system, as it regards the cultivator, follows shortly
afterwards ; and it is this : '^ Many there are who own
the land they occupy. An incredible spirit of industry
is manifested. Whoever is able purchases a nook
where he can, where sua regna videns miraHir, and
falls in love with independence." The population is
undoubtedly encouraged by such means ; but is it re-
dundant in proportion to its increase ? Let the same
writer determine this point likewise : he says, " Consi-
dering the population of Flanders^ the army receives
from it very few mercenaries. Even the servantry"
(mark this, ye advocates for overgrown monopolies)
*'in most of the Flemish towns is drav/n from other
countries'^." And lastly, " so great is every where the
plenty, that after what is necessary for home consump-
tion, you can scarcely name an article that is not
exported, even raw flax, though linens here are the
principal manufactured" But 1 have already said
enough on ''^ surplus produce," and shall leave those to
decide which is the happiest system, — this, or the one
which does all in its power to render as many human
beings as possible superfluous ; and, having been but
' Abbe Mann, Memoir, &c. Communications to the Board of
Agriculture, vol.i. p. 234.
^ Young, Annals of Agriculture, vol. i. p. 227, note.
•' Ibid, p. 250.
126 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [§V1II.
too successful in its attempts, is now beginning to be
bewildered how to dispose of them.
But the benefit of this minute system of culture
extends still lower, and indeed is universally felt. Its
main principle being to employ human labour, instead
of studying how to dispense with it, there is still room
for a class of society in rank below these little culti-
vators. There are labourers in the Netherlands, and
if the reader had just risen from perusing the report
of the condition of agricultural labourers in this
country ^, he would appreciate more fully some parts
of the following picture, which I take from the last
review, I believe, that has been taken of Flemish hus-
bandry, and which is in the volume published by Mr.
Radcliff, already frequently quoted. ''It is a pleasure to
observe the laborious industry of the Flemish farmer,
recruited by intervals of comfortable and decent
refreshment; and not less agreeable to perceive the
farm servants treated with kindness and respect. They
uniformly dine with the farmer and his family, at a
clean table cloth, well supplied with spoons, with four-
pronged forks, and every thing necessary to their con-
venience. In Flanders the gentlemen are all farmers,
but the farmers do not aspire to be gentlemen, and
their servants feel the benefit. They partake with
them a plentiful and orderly meal, which varies ac-
cording to circumstances. No farmer is without a
well-cultivated garden, full of the best vegetables,
which all appear at his own table ; and apples are also
introduced into their cookery. The farm servant par-
' Report from the Select Committee on Labourers' Wages
ordered to be printed 4th June, 1824.
§ Vni.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 127
takes of his master's fare, excepting in his refresh-
ments of tea, coffee^ and beer. A peculiar cleanHncss
prevails about all their habitations, and the decencies
of the table for the labourers_, who sit down to a re-
gular table cloth, furnished moderately with knives,
but abundantly with forks and spoons, are uniformly
observed. The labourer is in general very well able
to support himself by his work : in a country where
so much manual labour is required in weeding, the
labourer's family is occupied pretty constantly in sum-
mer ; and in Avinter they spin. Each day-labourer
HAS, IN MOST CASES, A SMALL QUANTITY OF LAND,
FROM A ROOD TO HALF AN ACRE, FOR HIS OWN CULTI-
VATION ^" And this is afforded to the labourer out of
the minute farms of the Netherlands. Shame upon
England, and upon many of its great proprietors and
farmers ! Mark the consequence ! " In common
times, a beggar is scarcely to be seen, except in the
towns, and but few there. In the country, habits of
industry are kept up till health fails, and, to meet the
infirmities of age, the poor possess a revenue from
pious donations " (long discouraged here, and even
impeded by law, because we have poor laws), " regu-
lated by the government, and vested by them in com-
missions, of which the mayors of the different com-
munes are presidents respectively, in right of their
office. The clothing of the peasantry is warm and
comfortable : good shoes and stockings, and, fre-
quently, gaiters of leather or strong linen. Their
comfortable supply of linen is remarkable : there are
few of the labouring classes without many changes.
' RaclclifF, Report on (he Agriculture of Flanders, p. -2.36.
128 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [$ VIII.
In riding, with a landed proprietor, through a part of
the country in which his property was situated, a neat
cottage presented itself; a clipped hedge which sur-
rounded the garden_, covered with linen very white,
suggested an inquiry ' whether it did not belong to a
washerwoman ?' The answer was short : ' it was
occupied by a labourer and his family_, and that the
linen was all their own.' Any circumstance con-
nected with the health, cleanliness and comfort of the
lower classes is interesting, and to this of which we
have been speaking, a particular degree of decency
is attached. If the labourer is comfortable in point
of apparel, the farmer is still more so. With respect
to the farm-house, the exterior is, for the most part,
ornamented with creepers, or fruit-trees trained against
the walls ; and within, the neatness which prevails is
quite fascinating. Every article of furniture is po-
lished_, the service of pewter displays a peculiar bright-
ness, and the tiled floor is purified with frequent
ablutions. The cottage of the labourer^ though not
so well furnished, is as clean. The Flemish farmer
seldom amasses riches, but is rarely afflicted with
poverty ; industry and frugality are his characteristics ;
he never looks beyond the enjoyment of moderate
comforts ; abstains from spirituous liquors^ however
easily to be procured ; never exceeds his means ; pays
his rent punctually, and^ in case of emergency, has
always somewhat to command beyond his necessary
disbursements ^"
I shall only quote another passage from this inte-
resting author, which may leave more fully in the
' Radcliff, Report, &c,, pp. 459, 461.
§VIII.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 129
reader's mind the advantages of minute cultivation,
reminding him that the same writer has stated^ in
common with all others, the land of the country to be
naturally the reverse of rich; in fact, a bad soil\"
Speaking of one of the departments, he says, '^ there
are 461,659 souls upon 302,235 hectares, which are
equal to 746,521 English acres, being about five souls
to eight English acres. But the population," he
adds, " is much more dense in other districts ; in that
of Bruges alone, at the rate of three souls to four
acres ; and in that of Courtray, at the rate of one to
an English acre. Notwithstanding this, one-third of
the produce of the land is annually exported ! than
which no circumstance can better mark the skill, the
industry, and frugality of the Flemish farmer^."
(12.) In Great Britain, with all our boasted supe-
riority in the soil and size of farms, and in the
implements of agriculture, there are about forty acres
to every ten souls, or twenty acres, probably, to every
family throughout. But, perhaps, the mountainous
districts of the north may prevent the comparison
from being allowed. Well, then, to take Ireland,
probably the richest soil of any country of equal
extent in Europe, if not in the world, there are,
including as before women and children in the cal-
culation, nearly thirty acres for every ten persons :
England and Wales have somewhat above. In a w^ord,
Ireland, in reference to its productive power, is
much the worst peopled of any of the grand divi-
sions of the kingdom.
And yet our Emigration Committee publish such a
' Radcliff. Report, &c. p. 1. ' Ibid. p. 271 .
K
130 IRELAND; ITS EV^ILS, [§VIII.
question as tliis^, alluding to the small occupiers : —
^^ Are you aware that the greater proportion consist of
possessions not greater than an acre of ground?" To
which Mr. Malthus replies affirmatively. As this is one
of the pretended facts on which the scheme of publicly
expatriating a part of the people_, and privately
clearing them^ as it is termed, is evidently founded,
it becomes necessary to examine it with some little
attention.
(13.) The last Irish census furnishes us with two
facts : one is_, that the usual calculation of persons to
a family is between five and six ^ ; and the other, that
much the greater number of the entire population
are not employed as agriculturists, meaning by such,
I presume, occupiers of land. In the summary of
Ireland, which is placed at the conclusion of the
Population Returns, the total number of persons occu-
pied, exclusive, of course, of young children, &c., is
stated to be 2,836,815; whereof 1,138,069 were
engaged in agriculture; 1,170,044 in trades, manu-
factures, and handicrafts ; and 528,702 in occupa-
tions different from the two former classes*. In
the statistical returns of the barony of Rathvilly,
being, I believe, the only part of Ireland the survey
of which was completed, or, at least, published,
agreeably to an order of the House of Commons, in
the year 1825, we have some details more minutely
given than in the general census. There we find it
stated that the families average five and a half persons
nearly ; the number of souls 17,359 ; of whom forty-
^ Abstract of the Population of Ireland, Prelim. Obs. p. 6.
' Ibid. p. 379.
^ VIII.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 131
eight per cent, of the employed were agricuhurists,
and fifty-two per cent, engaged in other pursuits. The
area of the barony, in statute acres, is 49,745, or
rather above the average density of population
throughout the island, though there is not what can
be called a town in the whole district. The number
of farms is 1568, averaging, consequently, above
thirty-one acres each. But the size of these vary as
follows : there are 573 under five acres, 288 between
five and ten, or, to calculate in English measure,
eight and sixteen ; 341 between sixteen and thirty-
two ; 288 between thirty-two and eighty-one ; 49
between eighty-one and 162; and 29 upwards of
162 acres each\ It is evident, from this statement,
that the greater proportion of cultivators who are
not in possession of more than an acre of ground,
must be sought for in the first class, and, as we find
in the same document that there are 516^freeholders
of 40?. each, we should not err much in assuming
that number to be principally made up of those whom
the question put by the committee points at. Bat,
to allow the utmost latitude to those who labour to
make out so strong a case against the little cultivators
of Ireland, supposing we deduct, for the first 573,
two acres and a half of land each, there remains of
land in the barony 48,313, to be divided amongst the
remaining 995 farmers, leaving nearly fifty acres for
each farm ; deducting, however, about eight per cent.,
which, it appears, is the proportion not at present cul-
tivated. This size is evidently far larger than the
average one in the better parts of the Netherlands,
' Statistical Returns, Barony of Rathvilly, p. 53.
K •:
132 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [§ VIII.
and is, as we observe, varied, from the smallest class
up to those of a larger extent, in many instances, than
the laws and customs of that country would allow.
These gradations, however, have a most beneficial ten-
dency, affording to the meritorious the means of
advancement in life, and that hope of it which is the
mainspring of all human exertion. A system like this,
placed upon the basis of a labouring peasantry, who
have themselves a little holding, and who, in addition
to the employment it affords, would be fully engaged,
if the possessorsof the soil were where they ought to
be, seems to be that of the agriculture of the Nether-
lands, upon, perhaps, a somewhat larger scale ; and a
more beneficial or happy one cannot possibly be ima-
gined. Wherever it is found connected with general
suffering and distress, the cause of the latter is not
to be sought for in the size of farms, and must be
remedied, if it is to be redressed, by very different
means than clearing either them or the country of
their inhabitants.
I think the above calculations, taken from the ba-
rony of Rathvilly, may be fairly enough extended to
all Ireland. Taking the rural population at about
five millions, which I should think too high a pro-
portion of the whole, at least as far as can be judged
from the face of the census, about 455,000 would be
the number of farmers, supposing there were the same
proportion in that occupation as in the barony of
Rathvilly: of these again, perhaps 166,000 maybe
the little cottage cultivators before spoken of, to whom
we allotted two and a half instead of a single acre of
ground : the remainder, it will be found, would have
§VIII.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 133
upwards of forty acres of cultivated land each, inde-
pendently of a share in the 4^900^000 acres which, it
appears^ are in occupation at present (though not in a
productive state), as they have now an annual vahic
fixed upon them. This addition would average the
farms at nearly sixty acres each. But I ara^, however,
persuaded this calculation is much underrated, as it is
plain, from the census, that the numher of the agri-
culturists, as given above_, is exaggerated. And as
they have not, generally speaking, capital enough to
cultivate farms of the average extent mentioned, nor
ever will, while absenteeship and underletting prevails,
it follows that there must be many farms of a very
great size in Ireland ; and such, however the fact
is kept out of sight, is positively the case, and to a
lamentable extent.
But to lay no stress whatever upon the foregoing
calculations, as founded upon a particular district of
Ireland, which I have not seen, and which may, for
aught I know, be a contrast to the rest ; and return-
ing, in order to avoid all cavil wdiatsoever, to the
naked fact: — there are in Ireland 6,801,821 persons :
calculating that there are between five and six persons
to every family ; and supposing that there wxre nei-
ther town nor city in the whole island — that there were
no manner of employment or pursuit but agricukurc,
there are still ten acres of the most fertile land in the
world to each family, one acre of which, we are as-
sured on all hands, would far more than suffice lor the
sustenance of each, as they are content to live, and
after all only two-thirds of the island is as yet under
cidture.
134 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [§ VIII.
(14.) Now_, in the Report on the State of Ireland,
there occurs a description, given by an intelligent wit-
ness of the condition of the farmers, not being manufac-
turers, of Downshire (one of the most thickly-peopled
counties in the country) who are in possession of about
this quantity of land, ten acres ^ each, on an average.
But they are fairly dealt by, and hold directly from
the proprietors^ ; their situation, consequently, is this :
they eat animal food^; build slated houses'* (a great
distinction in Ireland) ; their furniture is decent and
abundant^; and, finally, many of them have saved
very considerable sums of money ^. As to the la-
bourers, they are represented to be in regular em-
ployment'', and are paid in money®. In the county
of Down there are 367 souls on the square mile
(English) ; in Gal way, incontestibly the most wretched
and least-populated part of Ireland, just one-third
that number. It is erroneous, then, to attribute the
misery and distress of Ireland to the density of its
population : the converse of this notion is true of
the country throughout, as will be shown here-
after. But to return to the farmers. The "potatoe
system/* therefore, is not chargeable upon marriage,
nor population, nor small farms ; but upon absenteeism,
its desertions, its wholesale lettings, its exorbitant,
indeed incredible, rents ; and the clearings and drivings
it occasions ; and yet these last, and emigration, are
reckoned the only remedies for the sufferings of the
people.
' Report on the State of Ireland, 1825, First Part; Mr. Hugh
Wallace's (banker and solicitor) Evidence, p. 150.
• Ibid. p. 1 48. ' Ibid. p. 1 50. * Ibid. p. 1 50. * Ibid. p. 149.
'Ibid. pp. 150, p. 151. ' Ibid.^. 149. 'Ibid. p. 149.
§ VIII. 3 AND THEIR REMEDIES. 135
(15.) But the average size of the farms of Ireland, as
we have seen, are necessarily far greater than these.
To ascribe, therefore, its evils to a redundant popu-
lation, in the proper sense of the term, is as plain
an insult upon truth, as it would be to attribute
those felt generations ago^ when there were sixty
acres of land to every family, to the same act of Di-
vine Providence. These distresses will remain till
their prime cause shall cease ; till they shall be no
longer deserted and oppressed. They have^ alas ! long
been " a people scattered and peeled ; meted out
and trodden underfoot ;" and it is not by burning their
cottages, and driving them into exile, that they are
to be relieved. In the instance of the Netherlands
has been shown the condition in which Ireland might
have been placed, had she been properly treated ; the
condition to which she may yet attain, if her wrongs
are redressed, and she should no longer be the tributary
of distant oppression ; but see her exactors changed
for kind, benevolent, and resident landlords. A lovely
picture rises in one's imagination, in contemplating
what might be the result ; it has been already touched
by her own inimitable poet, when treating on the very
subject, in his Deserted Village ; the secret of the exqui-
site pathos of which is, simply, its truth ; and, alas! it
has the inspiration of prophecy as well as of poetry. But
our poets have sung, and our moralists pleaded in vain ;
even the solemn denunciations of our religion, in all
instances the religion of benevolence, and the assertor
of the rights of unprotected poverty^ have been utterly
disregarded. " Woe unto them that join house to
house, that lay field to field, till there be no place,
136 IRELAND ; ITS EVILS^ [§ ^'^^''
that they may be placed alone in the midst of the
earth !" was the malediction of the subhmest of the
prophets of Israel, a country thrice as densely peopled
as Ireland, even on the authority of profane history ;
and which, nevertheless, enjoyed the greatest abun-
dance in consequence of being guarded against ruinous
monopolies by the sacred institutions of its God : I
say ruinous, for so they still are to thousands upon
thousands of poor wretches who have been, and are
about to become, their victims. One of the milder of
the methods to get rid of the superfluous population
of Ireland, is, I perceive, to impose a tax upon cot-
tages : Mr. Malthus is asked whether the legislature
would be justified in some distinct measure of that
kind ; to which he responds in the affirmative K The
man, however, who shall make so nefarious a propo-
sal, will be " distinct" enough ; and should it be made
and passed, it would require only a single clause to ren-
der it palatable to the country at large, namely, that
its proposers and abettors should be the sole gatherers
of the impost ; it would be a disgrace to a civilized
country to have to collect an assessment, especially one
of so equitable and merciful a nature, at the point of
the bayonet. The consequences I do not mean to
disguise, and I hope it will be deemed no greater
offence to imagine the loss of a thousand political
economists for the public good, than it is for Mr.
Malthus to pronounce the demise of a thousand
labourers in the same cause, as '^ a gain certainly V
^ Emigration Committee, Third Report, p. 321,
^ Report of the Emigration Committee, Rev. T. R. Malthus's
Evidence, p. 314.
§ VIII.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 137
But we are neither of us in earnest : " No, no, we
do but jest, murder in jest, no offence i' th' world.
(Pours the poison into his ears\'') — But, seriously; a
principle which can coolly argue, even ex hi/pothesi,
that putting out of existence a thousand labourers,
would be " certainly a gain" in any point of view, is
one that is not Hkely to remain a dead letter ; it will
act as far as it dare : and what sort of a figure does
it cut in the eye of philosophy, of philanthropy, of
religion ? Every one of these thousand is as plainly
called to fill the station he holds in creation as the
proudest mortal in it ; and notwithstanding he is
audaciously told to the contrary, " he has a right to be
where he is ^ ;" an infinitely wise Providence, who
called him into the world, has visibly assigned him his
place in it ; and to assert or act upon the contrary
notion is unjust in the name of humanity, and false
in the name of God !
Touching all subjects connected with human morals
and conduct, we may rest assured of every system,
which holds that we may do evil that good may come,
that its '' damnation is just." We are unfitted by our
very nature for the regimen of any such principle,
being, on the one hand, too ignorant of future contin-
gencies, and, on the other, too partial in our mode of
judging of them, were they known tons, to qualify us
for this mode of determining the moral quality of
human actions. Hence we are favoured with far surer
guides, the feelings of humanity, and the dictates of
religion ; and happily the experience of the human
race has found these to be unerring. The more per-
fectly they have been obeyed, either by individuals or
' Hamlet. ' Malthus, Essay on Pop., 4lo, p. 531.
138 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [§ VIII.
communities, the more happy and prosperous have all
such permanently become. But the rule of political
economy is founded on ignorant selfishness : it has
been too long applied to Ireland, and we see with what
success. Try another : even the golden rule — Do to
her as you would be done by. Then would there be
a resident gentry, fair and moderate rents, general in-
dustry, grateful and gratified feelings, obedience to
the laws — in a word, a happy and contented country,
smiling with universal cultivation. These would
assuredly heal the breaches of that unhappy people
far better than the creation of a *' vacuum," again to
use the current phrase of the day, by desolation and
destruction. Then^ though her sons should still "grow
up as young plants, and her daughters as the polished
corners of the temple ; her garners would be full
and plenteous with all manner of store, and her sheep
would bring forth by thousands and ten thousands.
Then should there be no decay ; no breaking in, nor
going out ; no leading into captivity" — no emigration
— ^^ no complaining in her streets." In contradiction
to the doctrine of all the economists upon earth, this has
been the case wherever human industry has been duly
fostered and cherished, and population has been allowed
to proceed with those natural advantages which the
Deity evidently intended it should possess in its won-
der-working career. '' Happy are the people that are
in such a case!"
(16.) In dwelling upon the nefarious project of
clearing lands and destroying habitations, perhaps
some severity of language has been used, which I
take the occasion to say I do not direct personally
§ VIII.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 139
against such who may have thoughtlessly given into
the practice ; some of these, I am willing to hope, and
do indeed believe_, have taken so singular a view
of the subject, as to have construed it into benevo-
lence^ and have acted upon it with that feeling. Such
I have only to refer to the foregoing rule, as the
touchstone of their conduct, and ask them whether,
were they the little cultivator, they would like to be
ejected from the home of their forefathers, sent forth
with their families, whatever their age, as fugitives and
vagabonds, without employment or prospect of any,
and more unhappy than the beasts of the field or the
birds of the air, not having where to lay their head ?
As to the prime promoters of and actors in such pro-
ceedings, who glory in their shame, no language can
sufficiently express the turpitude of their conduct : I
am persuaded none can reach their feelings, other-
wise I would attempt to bring before their recollection
the numerous train of victims they have already sacri-
ficed to their selfishness : the happiness they have
destroyed (for they are not uninformed that happi-
ness may reside in a cottage, and even preside over the
potatoe meal to which their rapacity has reduced the
inmates) ; the misery they have created ; the prema-
ture deaths which have ensued, touching which it is
for God to decide whether they will be held guiltless.
I might summon from the grave, as witnesses against
them and their system, those who, either in the old
world or the new, have found that their sole refuge
against both : nay, that the sea might yield up of its
dead, the multitudes of such who have expired by the
sufferings of their passage in escaping oppression, or
140 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [§ VIJI.
by the hardships they had afterwards to encounter.
But no ! with these^, " the tyranny is overpast." Let
then the surviving and far more pitiable victims of
their poHcy pass in melancholy array before them ;
the wrecks of human happiness, unutterably miserable
both in appearance and reality, whose sufferings every
where excite the commiseration of strangers, let
these
" Come like shadows and depart,
Show their eyes and grieve their heart !"
But their eyes are perhaps in the ends of the earth ;
and as to grieving their heart ! —
I have been often at a loss to explain satisfactorily
to myself why we are invariably more affected by
a single case of human misery, than by a number of
such pressed at once upon our consideration ; yet
such, I fear, is the fact. Sure am I, at all events, that
particular individual instances that could be adduced,
of the sufferings to which this driving system has led,
would rouse the feelings of a humane reader far more
than any general representations upon the subject,
how^ever just. My objection against the practice of
engrossing lands, from its very commencement, and
through every stage, is perhaps the stronger, because
I have seen a few of its victims in this country, who,
from a station of modest frugality and comfort, have
had to turn into the parish work-house, where they
have Hngered awhile, mourning over past days, and
spent the clouded evening of life amongst strangers
and profligates ; and under the protection of that
amiable personage, the farmer of the poor ; an officer
that ought instantly to be put down amongst us by
§ VIII.] AND THEIR REMEDIES 141
law. But what is the condition of the eectcd Irish
tenant ? There is no employment for him to resort to,
as is happily often the case here ; that the absentee
proprietors effectually prevent. There are no poor
laws, obliging the man who creates the misery to
assist in mitigating it^ otherwise he would frequently
pause in his purpose: the law imposes no such duty upon
him ; the very case we are contemplating shows how
perfectly he avails himself of the immunity^ and it
brands with falsehood and folly the perpetually repeated
assurance, that private charity would fully compensate,
and in a better mode^ for the destruction of our public
provision for the poor. The desolate wretch is, there-
fore_, driven under such circumstances to desperation,
and, connected with a multitude of others similarly
treated, proceeds to those acts of violence, already
noticed as so frequent in Ireland ; otherwise he resigns
himself to his melancholy fate, and bears his sufferings
in silence. I shall not speedily forget a person acci-
dentally falling in with one of these, lying, where he
passed, by the road side, with a female infant in his
arms, both of them very destitute of raiment, and
evidently suffering from want. He learnt, that he was
one of those that had been '^ cleared ;" his wife, how-
ever, had died under the operation, and was, therefore,
left in her native earth. He had no home, but was
come to work in the harvest of England, and thought
he could safely lay his child in the field beside him,
while he laboured. The story of his destruction is not
easy to be forgotten, and the name, the sounding,
patriotic, noble name, connected with it, never. His
present distress was relieved, and but moderately, and
142 IRELAND ; ITS EVILS, [§ VIII.
it is mentioned only to describe the agony of gratitude
with which he received the alms, and which made a
more powerful impression as to his utter and hopeless
destitution^ than the distressing story he had told.
Wherever he may be at this moment, I had rather be
him than his oppressor \ One such act suffices to
make a human monster ; a multitude of them — a poli-
tical economist. Had I been that great individual,
whoever was the promoter or the apologist, or what-
ever the temptation, rather than to have quenched
the fires of those now desolate hearths, where they
had long cheered and illuminated a circle of the social
virtues, and a scene of human happiness, in however
lowly a sphere; or than have demoHshed those humble
abodes of peace and love ; my own paternal roof
should have fallen upon and crushed me, and the lamp
of life have become extinguished in my own bosom for
ever ! — '^ Yet Brutus is an honourable man ; so are
they all, all honourable men !"
I cannot impress too strongly upon the readers
mind the difference between this kind of conduct in
Ireland and in England ; in the former country it
amounts to unmingled cruelty and oppression ; the
sufterers are expelled and done with for ever^: in
' The language of the Irishman, culpable as it was, is not easy to
be forgotten; '* If there be a God, he cannot help but kill him 1" Only
imagine a moving multitude thus suffering, and thus feeling, and the
insubordinations and blood-shedding of Ireland is explained.
* " The landlord in Ireland has greater power than in any other
sta^e I know ; he is not bound to protect the tenant in case of dis-
tress or starvation, as he is in England, or in the countries, such as
Livonia and Germany, where they cultivate the land by predial
slaves, or as the negro slaves in the West Indies." — (Minutes of
Evidence on the Disturbances, &c. in Ireland; A.Nimmo, Esq.,
p. 290.)
§ VIII.j AND THEIR REMEDIES. 143
England^ however^ the proprietor who so acts knows
that those whom he expels he has still to maintain,
if they cannot procure other employment. But even
this consideration does not fully absolve the latter
in having adopted the modern agricultural policy:
much private suffering, and_, as I contend, public
distress, have been its results ; while the contrary
conduct is that of undoubted and manifest benevo-
lence, augmenting and multiplying happiness and
independence, wherever it extends. So true and
apparent is this, that our great and judicious moralist,
Paley, after enumerating many acts of benevolence
which the proprietors of estates are called upon to
discharge, particularises ^^ the establishment of fami-
lies, which," says he, ^^ is one of the noblest purposes
to which the rich and great can convert their endea-
vours, by building'" (not destroying) "cottages, and
splitting" (not engrossing) " farms^"
(17.) I might here again plead the interests of the
English agriculturists against this notable scheme
of thinning Ireland by emigration and monopoly,
the object of which, however disguised, is to obtain
for the proprietors a still greater " surplus produce,"
which would be inevitably poured into this country ;
but I forbear. In closing my remarks upon the
poverty and sufferings of Ireland, as occasioned by
absenteeship, and all its train of fatal and disgusting
consequences, and the still more revolting expedients,
which it seems now the fashion to represent as the
sole means of serving that country, founded on the
palpable error of supposing that all the wrongs she
' Paley, Moral Philosophy, p. 159.
144 IRELAND; ITS EVILS^ [^ VIII.
suffers spring from an overgrown population (an opi-
nion founded in utter ignorance, and, indeed, in defi-
ance of recorded facts), I would put a plain question
or two. Is a system, which can only be supported
by brute force, and is kept up by constant bloodshed-
ding, to be perpetuated for ever ? Are we still to gar-
rison a defenceless country in behalf of those whose
property was, generally speakings originally conferred
on the special condition of residence, but whose
desertion occasions all the evils under which she has
groaned for centuries ? — property so treated, that it
would not be worth a day's purchase were the propri-
etors its sole protectors. But they are aware that
their absence is balanced by the presence of a body
of military and police, which enables them to con-
duct themselves with as little apprehension as remorse.
The possessions of the entire empire would be lost
to their owners, were such conduct general ; and are
these so meritorious a class, that their utmost de-
mands are to be extorted from a distant and suffering
country, and themselves protected in the open neg-
lect_, or rather audacious outrage^ of all those duties,
on the due and reciprocal discharge of which the
whole frame of the social system is founded ? If they
persist in this course, let them do so, but let it be
at their proper peril ! Let them urge their own
claims, and defend their own outrages : the British
soldier, who is ready to bleed in the battle in which
his country's interest or honour is at stake, is too
noble a being, methinks^ to be degraded virtually
into the exactor of the enormous rents of the ab-
sentee, which his desertion often incapacitates the
§VIII.j AND THEIR REMEDIES. 145
wretched tenants from discharging, or to '"clear" his
estates of human beings^ when it may please him to
titter the fiat from afar^ I say I would leave them
to settle this as they could, only that it would be
practically difficult to sever their case from such as
had fair claims upon public protection. Methinks
the indignation of many may be roused at this view
of the subject, who may have, nevertheless, read with
the utmost degree of composure, and indeed com-
placency, the modern proposition of taking away
the sole right of the poor to any portion of the
property of the country, — a right confined in its exer-
cise to seasons of personal destitution and distress ;
solemnly awarded by the legislature, and evidently
conferred in lieu of a still more ancient and ample
one ; a right which has been exercised for ages, and
confirmed by hundreds of acts of parliament ; and
which has the sanction of natural justice, and the
commands of God in its favour. Mr. Malthus calls
an intimation of thus sweeping away the " right of
the poor," without any idea of offering the least equi-
valent, or proposing any substitute, " fair notice."
No such measures are contemplated respecting the
culpable class alluded to, though I dare say enough
has been said to rouse the feelings of wealth and its
panders^ the political economists. I would protect
every man in the enjoyment of his just rights, but I
would discourage him in the perpetration of wrongs-
* This " has led to a great deal of misery; lately to murder, burn-
ing of houses, and several other outrages ; and at Crooni there was
some difficulty in getting the tenants out, and tlie military wore
obliged to be "called in," — (Major-Genural K. liourk, third Report,
p. 313, 314.)
L
146 IRELAND ; ITS EVILS, [^ IX.
One thing is certain, Ireland is not to be treated as
it has been. Should it be conceived that too severe
a view is taken, in the preceding pages, of the conse-
quences of absenteeship, as occasioning, not only the
distresses, but the disorders of Ireland, which are
so frequently occurring, and which are invariably at-
tended with fatal consequences^ I must appeal to the
reports of the legislature on this subject, and to the
legal authorities who have had to administer justice
on occasion of these .disturbances, and who have
given evidence on these afflicting subjects. The evils
absenteeship inflicts have been often concealed; never
exaggerated ^
§ IX. (1.) I have been upon a gloomy topic, and
have dwelt the longer upon it from the humble hope
that something perhaps might be offered which might
assist in averting the fate which awaits many of
our unhappy fellow-subjects in Ireland, if the present
schemes are put into execution. The next proposi-
* " The parts with which I am acquainted, the principal gentry-
nave deserted : they have become absentees, and I am sure I ought
hot to have omitted to enumerate that as a principal cause of the
disorderly state of the disturbed counties, &c." — (John Lloyd, Esq.,
sergeant at law ; Minutes of Evidence, House of Lords, p. 207.)
" As to the state of Ireland, any view I suggest would be incom-
plete, without stating the effects of absenteeship. JNly opinion is,
that, independent of its abstraction from the country of so much of
its wealth, it produces great mischief to the whole frame of society ;
in Ireland, I may say, there is the destitution, the want, of a distinct
class. In ordinary times the loss of influence and authority, and
the control which belongs to education, to rank, and to property,
must be deeply felt in any country : but when it becomes disturbed,
I need not say that that which would form the barrier for the pro-
tection of the peace, is lost in Ireland ; and I have now been admi-
nistering the insurrection act in counties where the property of
absentees is extensive." — (F. Blackburn, Esq., ibid. p. 8.)
§IX.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 147
tion of the new school in her favour, now about to
be considered, is calculated to dissipate the melan-
choly feelings which may have been excited, and to
change them into others of a risible nature. It is
to relieve Ireland by giving the people a taste for
superior living ; and most assuredly a more agreeable
proposition was never made. A lesson more easy to
teach_, or pleasing to learn, was rarely propounded :
few Irishmen are there that do not bid fair to be apt
scholars at a very few lessons. The political quacks
have for once hit upon a happy, and, I think, effica-
cious remedy; it only remains that they should furnish
the materials of their prescription, and the cure would
be certain. But, alas ! instead of doing thus, our
empirics and their confederates would only act as
the political Dr. Snatchaways of Ireland ; they would
tantalize the country with a sight of what they do
not permit them to taste^ or, giving them a taste^ they
would not allow them a meal ; merely enough to
render the homely provision to which they are con-
demned still more unpalatable. Give the country the
means of comfortable subsistence, and^ rest assured,
the "taste" for it will follow^ as a matter of course.
But a taste of this nature, without the possibility of
gratifying it, instead of a blessing, would be the
greatest curse to the people. Before the use of the
potatoe was generally introduced, which now serves
as a subject of ignorant declamation, we know that
the population had as great a taste for, but as little a
taste of, animal food, as they have at present ; pro-
bably even less. But the circumstances of the coun-
try in regard to its exports, both at that period and
L 2
148 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [§ *X-
the present, fully show to what it is the spare diet of
the Irish is owing. If those who conceive this pro-
position is worthy of consideration (and such appear
to be numerous since the discovery was made by the
great Ricardo), would please to turn their attention
to the list of Irish exports, they will see, both by
their nature and extent, that the means of comforta-
ble subsistence are withdrawn ; their flour and wheat,
their butter, and beef and pork, are demanded by
these absentees, to distribute in foreign nations : they
would then_, one would think, see it their duty to
exhort such to allow them a taste, rather than busy
themselves in such a work of supererogation, as
teaching the poor Irish to acquire one. But, no ;
they have pronounced in effect that such remittances
to absentee proprietors are not in the least detri-
mental: merely a taste is what Ireland wants. I am^
however_, for giving this taste, and gratifying it; first,
by inducing the absentee landlords to return to their
property and country, and expend in Ireland the
sums, or, in other words, cause the provisions to be
enjoyed there which they are the direct means of
causing to be transported, distributed^, and consumed
elsewhere : — secondly, by the return of such, giving
a spur to every species of national industry_, and by
their example as proprietors, establishing a better
system, as it respects their oppressed tenantry, and
not being the first to " squeeze their enormous rents
out of the very blood, and vitals, and clothes, and
dwellings of their tenants, who live worse than Eng-
lish beggars^" Another quotation this, of a century
' Dean Swift, View of the State of Ireland, vol. vi. p. 159.
§ IX.J AND THEIR REMEDIES. 149
old, which may again jog the memory of tliosc who,
in dozing over these pages, may dream that the
miseries of Ireland are douhtless owing to its six
millions of inhabitants.
These doctrines will, doubtless, be very unpalatable
and unpopular amongst those to whom they are
addressed^ while those for whose benefit they are
solely intended will never hear of them. But, amidst
the pure incense which political economy is breathing
at the shrine of wealth, a puff like this can never be
perceived, nor can one or two discordant voices dis-
turb the interesting harmony of the orthodox and de-
voted worshippers.
(2.) But I must, in fairness, add, in reference to
this proposition, that the intention of its propounders
is meant to work a cure for the sufferings of Irehuid,
by giving her people a taste for good living in pre-
ference to matrimony; or, practically speaking, to
induce them to exchange chaste living for good
eating. It is supposed that the progress of popula-
tion would be thus checked, and the number of births
diminished — a mistake attended to elsewhere. I shall
now only observe, on this subject, that, before the
proposition can be entertained, it must be proved,
instead of asserted, that the evils of Ireland arise from
excessive numbers. This, however, can never be
done without disposing entirely of every period of its
past history. I must again repeat, that what Ireland
now suffers is but the continuation of evils which
were as deeply and universally felt when the p()])ula-
tion w^as notoriously scanty. At present, indeed, we
are told that the Irish "propagate like brute beasts ;"
150 IRELAND; ITS EVILS^ [V^*
which expression, if it mean that they do not regard
the preventive check, is, I beUeve, pretty true, as it
hkewise would be if apphed to ahnost every country
of Europe. But, in any other point of view, the accusa-
tion is probably more false as it regards them than
almost any other people upon earth ; whatever be their
national failings^ promiscuous connexion between the
sexes is not one of them ; there is, probably, less of
improper intercourse before marriage, and more
fidelity afterwards, than in any other part of the
empire, or of the world. In the proper meaning of
the term, the accusation is as false as it is indecent;
the indignant Irish might well retort, upon a system
which thus insults them, charges far more foul,
though much less false ; not, indeed, that it teaches
its votaries to propagate like ^* brute beasts," but that,
by inducing them to abstain from " propagation/' it
leads to vices of which brute beasts are incapable,
vices
** Most foul, strange, and unnatural !"
Even now '' the infection works ;" I have seen several
works on the principle of population, in which the
most disgusting expedients are darkly hinted at, or
directly explained, as methods of repressing *' the
evils it occasions." But these proofs of the iniqui-
tous tendency of such a doctrine are redundant. Let
the new school only discourage matrimony — that
state which our religion solemnly pronounces as
honourable in all, in whatever rank or station *; and
which the church, of which some of our political
' " Is not marriage honourable in a beggar ?" — Shalspeare.
^IX.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 151
moralists are ministers, expressly calls lioly, and as
plainly declares to be necessary ; and not only uni-
versal licentiousness of manners, but other evils, of a
darker and more disgusting nature, would follow of
course. A world six thousand years old is no novice
in these matters_, and its history shows that, wherever
and whenever marriage has been slighted, then and
there have the foulest crimes been introduced and
practised with impunity, which, as Gibbon himself
confesses, it was the glory of Christianity to re-
press, and by restoring the dignity of that state.
Again lower that dignity, declare marriage to be
" clearly an immoral act," without such and such
prospects_, and the consequences are certain ; the least
fearful of which are that guilt and suffering which a
general corruption of manners would occasion. I
speak warily ; innumerable authorities would sanction
me in stating all I have said in far stronger terms.
The British legislature has proclaimed that "^ great
and manifold inconveniences, not to be named, have
followed of constrained celibacy ;" and, in the lan-
guage of one of its greatest ornaments^ in anticipating
all these hateful consequences — I say, " such would^
and^ in no long time, must be, the eifect of attempting
to forbid as a crime, and to suppress as an evil, the
command and blessing of Providence, — increase and
multiply :" or, to use the language of a greater than
Burke, " forbidding to marry is the doctrine of
devils.'*
On the impolicy, the injustice, the cruelty, of
directly or indirectly discouraging marriage amongst
the poor (a favourite idea with our modern ceo-
152 IRELAND ; ITS EVILS^ [§ X.
nomists), as well as on the futility of all such
attempts^ I have spoken at large elsewhere, and shall
not, therefore, enter at present on these important
topics.
(4.) But supposing our political economists could
succeed in their endeavours regarding Ireland, and
that the Irish, instead of " propagating like hrute
beasts," could be induced to propagate like angels,
that is, not at all ; and that to remedy the consequence
of such a state of voluntary sterility. Providence
should please to realize, in behalf of our Irish pro-
prietors, the fable of Dean Swift's Struldbrugs, and
make a sufficient number of these unincumbered cul-
tivators immortal ; is there, I would seriously ask
those acquainted with the real state of things in Ire-
land, the slightest ground to believe that the advan-
tage of such a change would not to the last farthing,
and to the value of the minutest grain, find its way
into the pockets of the landed proprietors, not in the
least benefiting the cultivators, who would still be
confined to the barest possible maintenance ? And
what if it should please Providence to constitute at
the same time the rest of mankind Struldbrugs,
diminishing the mouths of the consumers of Irish
produce just in the same proportion as the mouths of
the producers, will the proposers of such a plan point
out its benefit to either party ?
§ X. (1.) The last proposition of some of our politi-
cal projectors in favour of Ireland is what I have termed
an ecclesiastical confiscation. In discussing this, I
shall not say a word upon the much agitated question.
§ X.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 153
Catholic emancipation, further than to remark that it
is a measure perfectly distinct from any of the propo-
sitions I shall bring forward in favour of Ireland,
and as such I leave it to be argued on its own grounds.
It is one, moreover, which, granting it all the impor-
tance attached to it by its ablest advocates, falls far
short, even in promise, of attempting that in behalf of
the country which ought to be accomplished, and with-
out delay. It is obvious that it could not have the
effect of increasing the products of the soil, or of dis-
tributing them more plentifully amongst the popula-
tion. Privileges, however regulated, the exercise of
which appertain practically only to the few, can never
feed a starving people. Emancipation of another
kind is what Ireland must sooner or later obtain,
which I fear is too often lost sight of in the continued
discussion of that question, or intentionally made, by
some engaged in it, the cover for the negligence or
oppression of those who are connected with Ireland,
and wdth the wrongs of Ireland. But the farce of
patriotism cannot be carried on for ever, by means of
a few cheap votes and declamations, sincere or other-
wise. Such political pharisees, out of the luxuriant
crop of their liberality, may pay tithe of their mint
and anise and cumin ; but they omit, in their treat-
ment of this unhappy people, the weightier matters
of the law of real patriotism, judgment, mercy, and
truth. These observations, I repeat, have not the
slightest reference to that question, and are even in
strict accordance with the opinions of some of its
warmest supporters.
The proposition to which I allude is the confisca-
154 IRELAND; ITS EVILS_, [ § X.
tion of the property of the Irish church, which some
are heginning to hint at, if not propose ; and which
many more secretly cherish as a cure for the sufferings
of Ireland, or rather of the poor of Ireland. How
ignorantly, I ought perhaps rather to say, how selfishly,
such reason, a very little examination will suffice to
show. Deferring for a moment the consideration of
the mode in which that part of the church rental
which consists of tithes, is at present collected, I shall
now contend that, while the ownership of such pro-
perty by the clergy is, generally speaking, no detri-
ment to the Irish cultivator, supposing his landlord to
have a spark of honesty ; it is, on the other hand, an
actual advantage to the country at large, — assertions
which perhaps may at first startle some, but which are
nevertheless true. None can be so weak as to sup-
pose, that were the tithes of Ireland abolished to-mor-
row, and all the glebe lands of the country confiscated,
the spoil would be bestowed on the wretched cultiva-
tors. However it should be disposed of, they would hav^
no share ; and as surely as eveiy landlord in the empire
lets tithe-free land at aproportionably higher rate than
titheable, so certainly would the rent of the land thus
exonerated be advanced to the full amount of the dif-
ference; nay, I believe, frequently far beyond that
amount ; the ecclesiastical proprietor generally consent-
ing to accept much less for his rights, that is, his pro-
portion of the property, than the lay one does, or would
consent to do. It must be well known to every one,
that a branch of the Irish legislature passed long ago
a resolution exonerating all the island from agist-
ment tithe ; an act of audacious spoliation seldom ex-
<§ X.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 155
am pled, in the advantages of which the little culti-
vator never did nor ever will share : the Irish clergy,
therefore, who many of them possess very little
glebe, were thrown solely on the tithe of the arable
land for their support. Turning again to the barony
of Rathvilly, I find that, out of the 49,745 English
acres, of which the barony consists, there are but sixty-
five acres of glebe. I believe it is reckoned one of
the most fertile in the country : the whole appears
to be titheable ; the total amount of the tithes is
£3156. 9^. 7|d, or nearly fifteen-pence farthing per
acre, or, as the report states it in Irish measure,
two shillings and a halfpenny. Now as the average
produce of that quantity, in Winchester measure,
throughout the island, is stated to be, of wheat up-
wards of thirty-three bushels ; of here, sixty-nine ; of
barley, fifty-four ; of oats seventy-two, and upwards ;
and of potatoes, more than 22,094 pounds, I leave
the reader to draw his own conclusions as to the rapa-
city of the ecclesiastical proprietors.
But, if these fifteen pence an English acre^ on all
the cultivated lands of Ireland, supposing tithes to
amount to that sum throughout^, were wrested from
the incumbents ; can any one, I repeat the question,
be weak enough to suppose that it would be presented
to the occupier as a bonus ? Wealth has always a
tendency to accumulate into large masses ; but what-
ever became of these fractions of it, we may be very
certain that none of them would rest with the inmate
' I think the evidences, in some of the Reports on Ireland,
state the average as much lower where commutations have taken
place.
156 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [§ X.
of the Irish cabin. In point of fact, too many of the
landlords of Ireland, and more especially the sub-
landlords^ the middlemen, as they are called, are so
eager to wring all they can from the cultivators,
that the clergyman is often actually defrauded of his
maintenance, from the utter impossibility of the little
tenant paying him his tithe-rent, after having satisfied
the larger exactions to which he is subject, and which
are rarely mitigated. If a full and adequate allowance
is not made, in respect to the tithe, I say the landlord,
and not the clergyman, is the real oppressor, while
the latter, in virtue of his equally legal and more an-
cient right, insists upon his income in the only way
in which he can obtain it. Perhaps a more flagrant
instance of profound ignorance, or rather selfishness,
cannot be imagined, than that some of the Irish propri-
etors, a vast majority of whom are Protestants, and who,
in most cases, received their estates for the very pur-
pose of supporting that religion, should talk about the
hardship of tithes, and not talk only, but throw the
burden upon their poor Catholic tenants. Why, the
titles of their own estates, in many cases, rest upon
what they would fain represent as injustice and op-
pression ; they were, in very truth, bestowed for the
purpose and on the condition of supporting the reli-
gion which they desert, as far as their personal presence
and influence goes, inveighing against parting with
that small portion of them which was at the same
time reserved as a maintenance for those who are to
this hour discharging the duties imposed upon them
in reference to it. Most of the property of Ireland is
of this protestant pedigree, though some of it would
§ X.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 157
now, it seems, be very glad to bastardize its ancestry;
but it would be curious enougb if such would plainly
set forth the superior nature of their claims^ con-
trasted with those of the ecclesiastical proprietors. It
would be unique^ as a legal as well as a moral demon-
stration^ to show that, whereas their title is in the full
bloom and vigour of perpetual youth, that of these
spiritual persons is actually become superannuated,
and ought to be allowed to expire as soon as possible.
If the large proprietors of Irish estates, or those who
possess property transmitted through such, are not
tired of their titles and possessions, it would be
advisable in them to discuss the rightful claims to the
ecclesiastical property of the country in a very dif-
ferent spirit.
(2.) But if the cultivators are not injured by eccle-
siastical persons owning a part of the joint property
of the country, excepting so far as the lay proprietor
is accessary to the abuse sometimes occasioned ; the
public at large are highly benefited by the circum-
stance. The church property, were it seized^ would
inevitably find its way into the possession of the
great proprietors; and of these^ as certainly, a large
proportion would be absentees^ — causing another im-
mense sum to be added to that which is at present
abstracted from the country, and expended elsewhere,
still increasing the evils of that absenteeism, which is
the curse of Ireland.
(3.) Here^ I am aware, I shall be answered, that
the Irish clergy are many of them absentees. I meet
the assertion by a direct denial ; and I do it on the
authority of the official returns, relative to the clergy
158 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [§ X.
of Ireland, published by the House of Commons, in
1824. These returns, not having been called for with
any \iew to determining the point I am considering,
nor being very uniform as to the mode in which they
are drawn up, I am prevented from presentinf^ a
minute account of the number of ecclesiastics absent
from the country. From turning, however, to those
dioceses, where the actual residence of the clergy is
particularized, it is plain that such must be very
few indeed. It does not appear to me that there
are a dozen regularly resident in England, nor half
that number upon the Continent. Whether they
reside on their respective livings, or supply their places
by resident curates, it is wide of my purpose to inquire,
but which it behoves, I think, some of those wbo
make public statements on the subject, to examine
into a little more narrowly, before they pronounce so
calumniously, as I fear they do, upon this subject.
(4.) It may, therefore, be pronounced, that the
clergy of Ireland are discharging their duty more
completely and beneficially to the country, than any
class of the gentry it contains, or rather that it ought
to contain ; for I presume we may still venture to
call men of their education, and connexions, and man-
ners, gentlemen. And their influence on society, not-
withstanding it is grievously lessened by their being
in great measure deserted by the laity of their own
station, is still more beneficial even than the expendi-
ture of their whole income in the country. One of
the government inspectors, on a late trying occasion.
Major Woodward, having traversed nearly the whole
of the most distressed districts of Ireland, thus ex-
^X.j AND THEIR REMEDIES. 1,59
presses himself: " I must, as a public officer, whose
duties call him into close contact with them (the
clergy) throughout the most remote, and (by all others
of the higher classes) deserted parts of the kingdom,
declare^ in common justice, that, were it not for the
residence and moral and political influence of the
parochial clergy, every trace of refinement and civil-
ization would disappear \" But I shall pass over the
advantage to every community of having persons dis-
tributed through it, of extensive learning and liberal
manners, and, above all, of christian principles and
demeanour; which, notwithstanding the sneers with
which the profession is often assailed, is its great
and general characteristic ; and shall only fix upon
their conduct in seasons of general distress, in-
stancing, at present, that of the late fatal dearth
and epidemic — a time, indeed, which put to the test
the immeasurable distance between real and pretended
patriotism. At that period, when, as its able and
feeling historians record, the evils of the non-residence
of the proprietors was so deeply felt^ the conduct of
the clergy, both bishops and inferior orders, was
beyond all praise^; many of the latter, we are informed,
fell victims to the unremitted discharge of their sacred
and benevolent duties ^ I trust, such at least have
expiated the offence of having subsisted upon a share
of the landed property of the country, and a grievous
one it is in the estimation of many an absentee.
* Major Woodward, Speech of Bishop of Limerick, p. 89.
* Baker and Cheync, Account of the Fever in Ireland, vol. ii. pp.
35,76, 100, 125, 138, 168, 338.
'Ibid, vol.ii. pp. 76, 84, 89, 100, 101, 103, 105, 138, 336.
* Ibid. vol. ii. p. 42.
160 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [§ X.
(5.) I will not disguise^ that some of the preceding
observations have been suggested to my mind^ by
reading the attacks, in both houses of Parliament,
made upon the clergy, and especially the Irish clergy.
One gentleman, if I remember right, selected the
archiepiscopal see of Armagh as the subject matter of
his declamation ; I shall make no allusion to the nature
of his mis-statements, those I believe were sufficiently
exposed at the time. I shall only take up that part
of the question which I am discussing, namely, whether
church property is not at present in far better hands,
as it regards the interests of Ireland, and of the poor
of Ireland especially, than it would be if some of our
projectors had their way. I shall not attempt to flat-
ter any living prelate, though several of them are at this
instant engaged in works of extensive benevolence, but,
purposely taking the instance selected for the attack,
shall quote Arthur Young's Tour in Ireland, which
now lies before me, in reference to that see. This is
an extract from his journal : " Reached Armagh in
the evening: waited on the primate. July 23rd, his
Grace rode out with me to Armagh, and showed me
some of the noble and spirited works by which he has
perfectly changed the face of the neighbourhood.
The buildings he has erected in seven years_, one
would suppose, without previous information, to be
the work of an active life. A list of them will justify
this observation. He has erected a very elegant
palace, ninety feet by sixty, and forty high, in which
an unadorned simplicity reigns throughout." (This
he describes at length and the noble view it commands.)
" The barracks were erected under his Grace's direc-
§ X.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 161
tions, and form a large and handsome edifice. The
school is a buikling of considerable extent^ and admi-
rably adapted for the purpose, a more convenient one
or better contrived is nowhere to be seen. There are
apartments for the master, a school-room fifty-six feet
by twenty-eight, a large dining-room, and spacious airy
dormitories, with all other necessaries, and a play-
ground walled in; the whole forming a handsome
front : and attention having been paid to the residence
of the master (the salary is <£400 a year), the school
flourishes, and must prove one of the greatest advan-
tages to the country of anything that could have been
established. This edifice is entirely at the primate's
expense. The church is erected of white stone, and
having a tall spire makes a very agreeable object in a
country where churches and spires do not abound ; at
least such as are worth looking at. Three other
churches the primate has also built, and done consi-
derable reparations to the cathedral. He has been the
means also of erecting a public infirmary, which was
built by subscription, contributing amply to it himself.
A public library he has erected at his own expense,
given a large collection of books, and endowed it.
The room is excellently adapted, forty-five feet by
twenty-five, and a gallery and apartments for the libra-
rian. He has further ornamented the city with a
market-house and shambles, and been the direct means
(by giving leases upon that condition) of almost new
building the whole place. He found it a nest of mud
cabins, and will leave it a well-buih city of slate and
stone. When it is considered that all this has been done
in the short space of seven or eight years, I should
M
162 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [^ X.
not be accused of exaggeration if I said tliey were
noble and spirited works, even undertaken upon a
man's paternal estate ; but how much more then are
they worthy of praise, when executed, not for his own
posterity, but for the public good." He mentions that
his Grace was engaged likewise in furthering agricul-
tural improvements ; into which subjects I shall not
accompany him\
I leave it to the imagination to pourtray the activity
and plenty which revenues thus dispensed must diffuse
through a country, independently of the permanent
advantages and embellishments they bestow. As to
those who hold property thus possessed, to be, nation-
ally speaking, a nuisance^ or that it would be far better
in the hands of some heartless absentee, let them
enjoy their own opinions unmolested ; they are, I un-
derstand, enough to keep each other in countenance,
nay, it is said their opinions are spreading — that they
are the notions of great and influential men, as well
as of learned lecturers and grave professors ; so that
one is almost afraid, as Shakspeare has it, that *'this
great lubber, the world, will prove a cockney." This
lunacy, however, cannot long continue.
(6.) In defending the revenues of the church of Ire-
land, and the right of its clergy to the value of the
tithes, not only on principles of justice, but circum-
stanced as property now is in that country, as a
national good, I would by no means assert that the
continuation of the system of tithing is otherwise
than bad and barbarous. I shall not touch upon the
subject agriculturally ; its evils, in disturbing the
' Young, Tour in Ireland, pp. 103, 104.
§X.J AND THEIR REMEDIES. 163
proper rotation of cropS;, and, when gathered in kind,
in defrauding the land of its regular manure, and
above all, in falling as a tax upon superior cultiva-
tion, are sufficiently apparent ; but these form no
reasons for the forfeiture, but for an equitable com-
mutation of tithes. Let those who speak upon this
subject, with other views^ recollect that the system
of collecting tithes in kind is but the continuation
of the metairie system which once prevailed univer-
sally, and still remains in some parts of France, and
generally in Italy. The landlords in such case had
usually the half, the clergyman a tenth of the pro-
duce. It has been found far more convenient to both
landlord and tenant to change this mode into the
payment of a rent mutually agreed upon between
the parties ; but the share of the church has con-
tinued to be estimated or taken upon the old prin-
ciple, equally to the disadvantage and dissatisfaction
of all concerned : it is, in fact, a relic of barbarism ;
of a mode which was, perhaps, once necessary, on
all hands, when coin was rare, and bargains conse-
quently still continued to be made pretty much on
the principle of barter. Even the revenues of the
country, at least some of the most productive ones,
continued, till within these few centuries past, to be
paid in kind, particularly in wools. It is much to
be regretted that, as money payments became practi-
cable, and were adopted in almost all other cases ; so
beneficial an alteration did not take place touching
the revenues of the church : one which would have
been demonstrably for the benefit of all parties, and
more especially for the clergyman, who, 1 am per-
164 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [§X.
suaded, notwithstanding the outcry against him, is
the greatest sufferer. Nothing, it appears to me,
could be easier than a measure which Would have
the effect of ultimately exonerating all the land in
the empire of tithes, and converting them into glebe,
without any compulsory clauses whatsoever ; though
I see not why such might not be resorted to, in order
to carry into effect a regulation founded on impar-
tial justice and reciprocal advantage. The ancient and
beneficial feelings of reverence and affection between
the pastor and his people would then be naturally
renewed. On the present system, however, it is
almost impossible that the former should escape cen-
sure, w^hatever be his conduct. If he accept less
than his right, which he does in most instances, still
he does not escape, in many cases, the odium of
being an exactor and oppressor, in that he takes any-
thing. Instead of the respect and veneration with
w^hich a kind and benevolent landlord is ever re-
garded, and which he would then be enabled to
become, he is now looked upon, at best, but as a sort
of ecclesiastical tax-gatherer : nay, I see in the statis-
tical account of Rathvilly, tithe is classed under the
head of " local taxation," instead of under the column
of rent ; a distinction apparently not without a dif-
ference, and possibly one of the utmost practical
importance. If he do not take his tithes in kind,
in the fear that he may and the knowledge that he
can, he becomes a standing object of dread and dis-
trust. If he do, he is hated and defied. His minis-
terial functions are, in the mean time, disliked and
deserted, and his office, as well aa his person, held
§ X.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 165
in abhorrence ; and from this state of things, many
are constantly alienated from the establishment by
the very means which, under a better system, would
unite them to it_, and promote its interest and utility.
No temporary commutations, as at present, can fully
obviate these evils, much less secure the advantages
proposed. That a general bill should not have
passed centuries ago, to facilitate the permanent
commutation of tithes, is one of those many in-
stances that might be adduced which would almost
tempt one to believe that the management of the
affairs of the church had been committed into the
hands of its enemies. I can hardly see who could have
been its opposers, or what were the difficulties, beyond
such as always attend the adjustment of separate in-
terests of considerable magnitude. Some such bill
might and ought still to be framed ; for it cannot
be disguised that, owing to the system of manage-
ment of estates in Ireland, especially as so much is
under the "care" of middlemen, the present mode
of collecting tithes falls as a very great grievance on
the little Irish cultivator ; and violent heats, much
bloodshed, and great distress, are constantly occa-
sioned by it. Meantime, as an accelerator of such
im adjustment, the landlord should in all cases
PAY THE value OF THE TITHES TO THE INCUMBENT;
which tithes might be annually fixed at a reasonable
rate, calculated upon existing prices, but without
reference to the variation in the produce of the ac-
tual crop ; and means might easily be adopted to
secure both parties from any material imposition.
(7.) Having ventured to touch upon the ecclesi-
166 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, R XI.
astical property of Ireland, I will just add, that a
very beneficial arrangement, of a nature purely pro-
spective, and consequently not interfering with exist-
ing rights, might be made so as most essentially to
serve the interests of the establishment and its mem-
bers. If the leasehold system, now absorbing so
much of its income, were gradually got rid of, reserv-
ing at least what would be as ample a revenue for the
purposes to which the whole is appropriated, as now
enjoyed ; and the surplus thus created were devoted
to increasing the number of cures throughout the
country, now so lamentably few, the advantages would
be great. Who could be the objectors to such a pro-
position, it is difficult to imagine ; certainly not the
friends of the establishment. But I am wandering
from the matters to which, in the outset, I purposed
to confine myself, and to which I shall now return.
§ XI. (1.) The preceding observations, whether in
relation to the wrongs of Ireland, or, as I believe
them to be, the fatal errors in the propositions of
those who, there can be no doubt, are anxious to re-
medy them, might have been greatly multiplied; they
have, however, been already extended to a far greater
length than originally intended ; as it was less my ob-
ject to write a treatise on the state and condition of
Ireland, than to point out those circumstances which
have caused it to become an apparent contradiction
to the principle of population, as already propounded.
Having, however, insisted upon what I conceive to be
the real source of the evils of that country, and ex-
posed, as well as I have been able, the inefficacy, and
§XI.J AND THEIR REMEDIES. 167
indeed the pernieiousness, of those remedies which
are now so urgently proposed for their removal or
relief, — it perhaps may be expected that I should give
my ideas as to the methods proper to be adopted, in
relation to that country; exposing, in turn, my views
on this important matter to that examination to which
I have so freely subjected those of others.
It is an ancient, and, hitherto, not an exploded
adage, that the knowledge of the disease is, in many
cases, half the cure ; and if the view which I, or rather
others infinitely better qualified to determine, have
taken of the prime injury which Ireland sustains, be
correct, then the remedy is at once suggested. If
Ireland is impoverished, degraded, and distressed, by
absenteeism, the cure for these sufferings is doubtless
the removal of tlieir cause, or, if that cannot be en-
tirely accomplished, by counteracting its effects as
much as possible.
(2.) There are some, however, so extremely tender
upon this point, that they would consign a whole
country to perpetual suffering, rather than take any
measure whatsoever that should have the appearance
of touching, ever so slightly, what they denominate
the rights of private property. I shall not pause to
argue with such ; their principles are utterly incon-
sistent with the paramount rights and even duties of
the legislature, and with the ultimate preservation ot
that property itself, about which they profess to be so
anxious. This is a very common idea with those who,
nevertheless, are not very adverse to sweeping away the
rights of one or two entire classes of society at once,
that is, if they think it to be for their interest. Such
168 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, Kxi.
I can assure that I feel as averse as any one ought to
do, from any measures which the most rigid principles
of justice would discountenance, and I would propose
nothing that should he reasonably objected to, even
by the parties themselves interested. At all events,
the propositions I am about to submit are of a far less
onerous nature than many laws which have, from time
to time, been passed on this subject, and greatly short
of what government has, and at no very distant
period, proposed, or that which the parties themselves
ought voluntarily to adopt.
(3.) As to interfering at all, it has been already hinted,
that the property possessed by these absentees, if duly
traced, will be found to have been conferred on the
condition of personal residence, or what is equivalent
to it. The more this matter is examined, the clearer
will it appear. This was doubtless the view taken of it
by sundry monarchs, and by many parhaments. As
early as the reign of Edward III., in 1368, we find him
stating, in an ordinance regarding Ireland, that *^plu-
seures seigneuries et terres illoeques par noz ditz pro-
geintours feurent donez & grantez a divers seigneurs
et auters persones noz-foialt d'engleterre, qi tieur guer-
dons avoient par leur continuel demoeure sur leur ditz
seigneuries purreit sauvement estre defenduz a touz
jours : et coment de long temps out pris les issues et
profitz sans defens ou garde covenable y mettre, si qi
par leur defauts et non chaler sont les ditz mals ave-
nuz en perdition de la dite terre," &c.^ In the reign
of Richard II. a law was passed, fining absentees two-
' Anthologia Hibernica j quoted by Croker, pp. 267, 268, note.
§XII.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 169
thirds of their estates : a law which was again revived
in that of Henry VIII.*; as^ like all others of this
nature_, the former had been evaded. In the time of
James I._, the entire lands of all absentees were vested
in the crown ^. In 1715, the Irish parliament taxed
the pensions^ salaries, &c. of all absentees four shillings
in the pound, which tax was afterwards repealed, not
because the principle was disapproved of, but because
the dispensing power with which the crown was in-
vested had rendered it a nugatory measure. In 1773,
even the government there was so impressed with the
evils it occasioned, that a tax of two shillings in the
pound was proposed on the real estates of all absen-
tees : the measure, however, was lost by a small ma-
jority. Enough^, I think, has been advanced to show,
that to legislate on this matter would be no inno-
vation.
§ XII. (1.) The first proposition I venture to make
is the following : —
I would have the legislature pass a law, by which
the great English owners of Irish estates should be
empowered to cut off the entail of their Irish pro-
perty, in favour of the junior branches of their family,
on condition that those on whose behalf it should be
done should be residents in the country, otherwise
their interest, thus created, to revert back to the heir
at law. For example, I would enable an Earl Fitz-
wilhara to will his Irish property, under such limita-
' Leland, Hist, of Ireland, vol. ii. p. 124.
'' Ibid. vol. ii. p. 468.
170 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [§ XII.
tion^ to one or more of his younger sons_, any legal
obstacle to the contrary notwithstanding.
(2.) When I first conceived this idea, as an easy
and natural remedy for that form of absenteeism
which is the least_, if at all, criminal, namely, where
the individual has property in both islands, concerning
the mode of dealing with which case there has always
been considerable difficulties expressed; 1 imagined
it to have been an original thought, and one which
would be hailed even by such absentees themselves,
as affectionate fathers, and not very liable to ob-
jection on the part of generous brothers. But I am
happy to resign all claim to originality for the supe-
rior gratification of being enabled to clothe the pro-
position with the weight due to ancient and far better
authority. I find that Dobbs^, a true Irish patriot^
mentioned so highly by Archbishop Boulter, and
now so often referred to, proposed the same thing,
under the name of what he calls an act of Gravel-
kind, and with precisely the same object.
(3.) I can anticipate but one material objection to this
proposition, and that will, after due examination, be sur-
rendered, as founded in ignorance and error. It might
be argued, were the theory of population I am op-
posing true (indeed it is so asserted), that these noble
estates, thus divided, would ultimately be parcelled
out into insignificant shares, and the rank of the
family at length lost by such an expedient. To this
it might be answered, that the law of entail might be
resumed, regarding estates when so divided, as strictly
as had been the case before. But, independently of
§ XII.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 171
this, the objection is entirely imaginary and fallacious.
In allusion to the peerage, I have already remarked
that the tendency, in great families in possession of
lar^e properties, is not to undue multiplication, but to
extinction, and that to a very extraordinary degree.
A striking proof of the practical errors into which
the modern notion upon population betrays its
adherents, has recently occurred in the arguments in
the French chambers against their law of descent
(something like our Kentish law of gavelkind),
founded on the geometric theory of human increase ;
whereas, had the speakers adverted to the statistics
of their country, they would have found that the
births of France are few^er now than they w^ere half
a century ago, and that the increase of the inha-
bitants is therefore solely attributable to the increased
longevity of the country ; consequently, as far as the
principle of population had to do with the matter,
property there must have a tendency to accumu-
lation, instead of division. At all events, as it
respects the rank alluded to — the absentee ow^ners of
Irish possessions, nothing can be clearer than its
constant tendency to diminish. One fact only will
sufficiently confirm the interesting principle already
alluded to on this point, and it is this : — since the
Union, in so short a period as twenty-six years,
thirty-two of the Irish peerages, existing at that time,
have become extinct.
(4.) In following up this idea, three important
parties would be essential gainers. First, the Irish
nation, in behalf of whom the proposition is made,
amongst whom the income of such (which naturally
172 IRELAND ; ITS EVILS^ [J XIII.
belongs to them) would be expended. Second, the
empire; which would not then have to sustain so
many younger branches of noble and wealthy families,
as is now the case. Third, the individuals to whom
such property would descend ; — while the very per-
sons at whose apparent expense this beneficial
arrangement would be effected, still in possession of
all that rank and affluence could possibly bestow,
would be sufferers in imagination only ; nor even in
imagination : for we may well believe that the gene-
rous elder branches of these great families would
participate in the satisfaction and pleasure with
which such a regulation would be regarded by every
parent worthy of the name.
§ XIII. (1.) My next and far more important
proposition in favour of Ireland, is, that a reformed
system of poor-laws should be instantly established,
founded upon the humane principle, but avoiding the
errors, of those of England, in being more completely
adapted to the altered circumstances of the times ;— '
that there, as here, wealth should be compelled to
assist destitute poverty, in proportion to its means ;
but that, dissimimilar to our practice, that assistance
should, in all cases, excepting in those of actual inca-
pability from age or disease, be connected with
labour ^
But, in making this proposition, it seems necessary
that I should enter into a short defence of the prin-
ciple, especially as it is so much assailed by our poli-
' This was not only the original law, but the early practice. — (See
Dalton's Country Justice, chap, xx.)
§XIII.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 173
tical economists, who unanimously and vehemently
resist its introduction into Ireland, and who, however
differing upon other points, unite in their endeavours
to vilify the national charity preparatory to its de-
struction even here. Mr. Malthus speaks authorita-
tively upon the occasion, in that, as he somewhere
says, he has reflected much upon the subject : on that
ground I may likewise claim to be heard, as I have
not only thought upon it through life, but have volun-
tarily engaged in the duties the system imposes, as
well as in those of other institutions in connexion
with it ; and have come to a diametrically opposite
conclusion : not maintaining that it has not been
abused, is not abused, and will not in future be
abused (for against what institution, however divine,
might not the same charge be urged ? — could Chris-
tianity itself stand the test of such an unfair ordeal?)
but contending that, in its principle, it is founded in
justice and mercy, and that, in its operation, it is a
universal benefit to the community.
(2.) In proceeding, therefore, to a short defence of
the system of a legal provision for the poor, I shall not
occupy the entire limits to which I mean to restrict
myself, in refuting the obviously frivolous and false
objections which are so often urged against it, and
which serve to prove that it is unassailable excepting
by odious misrepresentations. Always forgetting, or
otherwise culpably misrepresenting the description of
poverty and distress, to the relief of which so great
a proportion of the sums raised is appropriated;
many choose to regard the national charity as solely
occupied in supporting and maintaining able-bodied
174 IRELAND ; ITS EVILS, [§ XIII.
and flagitious idleness'. Any authentic list of the
relieved will sufficiently answer all such persons'^;
meantime the character of the working classes of the
people of England (a race with which the world has
none of a similar rank to compare, notwithstanding
the perpetual accusations against them) brands the
accusation with falsehood ; while the institution itself,
both in its letter and spirit, contradicts it. Pro-
viding for those numerous cases which, in every pos-
sible state of human society, must ever remain objects
of charitable attention,— it is true it did not leave out
of its consideration that species of distress which the
very history of the question shows has always existed,
and which, to the confusion of the system I am oppos-
ing, has ever been found the most general when popu-
lation has been the fewest, I mean the suffering occa-
sioned by want of employment. Mr. Malthus asserts
that such have no rightful claim to the ^'smallest por-
tion of food :" the institution in question maintains the
contrary ; but in doing so, it prescribes that, in such
cases, labour shall be connected with relief. This,
whoever may declare it to be impracticable, is plainly
otherwise, and has been so proved by whole com-
munities and countries, for successive ages. Instead,
therefore, of this institution being the cause of idle-
ness, it is its cure, and is a simple and effica-
cious one, whenever properly administered. On the
contrary, it is the system that is invariably acted
upon, wherever this is found wanting, which is the
^ *' Plundering the industrious to support the idle." — (Minutes of
Evidence before the Lords, on the disturbances of Ireland, p. 3 15.)
^ See Sir Frederic Morton Eden's Hist, of the Poor, vols. ii. and
iii. passim.
§Xin.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 175
patron of idleness and rnendieaney, as will be observed
hereafter. Conceding, most fully, that relief to able-
bodied paupers, unconnected with labour, is perni-
cious in the extreme, I deny as strongly that such is
the principle of the system I am about to defend, or
its necessary consequence in any instance. Labour
is the physic of pauperism of this kind, which w^ould
carry off its humours, and reduce it to a sound state,
and proportionably diminish the expense of its main-
tenance. As to the difficulty, or, as some allege,
the impossibility of employing the idle poor, the case,
I repeat, is palpably otherwise. Even labour, wholly
useless with regard to any intrinsic advantage to
the public, would be invaluable in this view of
the subject, and surely such might every w^here
be created ^ But there is no need to fix upon any
degrading and utterly useless employments. Human
labour is, unquestionably, too sacred an instrument
to be thus disgraced ; far too valuable a talent thus
to be squandered. It might and ought to be directed
to objects of general interest and utility, which pre
sent themselves wherever we may be ; such as, pro-
bably, individual enterprise will never attempt, but
which, for that very reason, it may be the more
necessary that the public should accomplish. What
' The following quotation from Sir William Petty is not only in
illustration of this point, but likewise incidentally shows that the
want of labour is not peculiar to a crowded population, as some
suppose, but rather to the contrary : " It is no mutter if their la-
bour," speaking of the idle poor, "be employed to build a useless
pyramid upon Salisbury plain, — bring- the stones at Stoneheng-e
to Tower Hill, or the like ; for at worst this would inure their minds
to discipline and obedience, and their bodiis to a patient and pro-
fitable labour when need shall require it." — (Polit. Anatomy, p. 16.)
176 IRELAND ; ITS EVILS, [§ XIII.
would have been achieved, if the sums, often worse than
wasted in keeping the poor in idleness, instead of
employing them, had been thus directed ? What
might still be the consequences, if a better adminis-
tration of the national charity were to prevail ? A
writer of celebrity in the last century lamented this
malversation of its funds, in a country where, he
observed, the labour of five hundred thousand indi-
viduals, for five hundred years, might be most advan-
tageously devoted to enterprises of universal inte-
rest and utility. Minor objects, however, solicit our
attention in every direction ; but_, without suggesting
such at present, or the means by which they might
be accomplished, I will content myself with stating
that the advocates of the poor-laws are as anxious as
their impugners can be, that in all cases where relief
is administered on the ground of want of work, it
should, agreeably to the ancient institution, be cou-
pled with labour, under these obviously necessary
regulations: — First, the employment ought to be such
as not to interfere with the regular " market of la-
bour;" and, secondly, its remuneration should be
somewhat lower than for that usually demanded ;
and, moreover^ it should be_, generally speaking, of
a less desirable kind. Such a regulation would in-
stantly reform pauperism, and obviate the objection
to the entire system now so perpetually urged, and
at the same time would prevent the remedy from
itself ever becoming an evil^ as is too commonly the
case.
Under these regulations, then, nothing seems to
be clearer than the policy of this institution, in
§ XIII.] AND THEIR REMEDIED*. 177
every point of view, and especially in a great manu-
facturing country, where machinery is daily multi-
plying, and employment in perpetual fluctuation. It
equahzes the price and sustains the value of labour;
and supports, in such sudden transitions, those masses
of society which create, and consequently are essen-
tial to, national wealth : just as the cultivator in
the inactive season, for — hierns igiiava colono — care-
fully preserves his team for future use. Then, as to
those who, even in a time of general activity, can-
not sustain themselves, for such there have ever
been, and will still continue to be, while human
society endures, whatever be its form, — such as the
infant orphan; the destitute widow; the impotent,
whether of mind or body; or those who, in the midst
of their labours, are maimed by accidents, or arrested •
by sickness — stricken, as our ancestors expressed
themselves, by the act of God ! — is anything more
reasonable than that wealth should support these in
proportion to its superfluity ? Is anything more
necessary than such a law ?
(3.) But it is said that the poor ought to save suf-
ficient to maintain themselves, during all these fluctua-
tions and sufferings, and in anticipation of them.
Nothing, however, can equal the absurdity of such a
proposition, notwithstanding the gravity with which
it is propounded, and the constancy with which it is
repeated. It is absurd, because, first, of its utter im-
possibiHty in most cases. How, for instance, is the
desolate orphan to provide itself with this previous
fund ? How is the man just entered on his labours,
smitten with a lingering disease, or deprivcnl of his
N
178 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [§ XIII.
limbs by the numerous accidents to which that labour
exposes him^ to amass it ? But I go further ; I totally
deny the possibility^ in most cases, even of those
whose health and labour has been the least interrupted,
to do so : let those who have the face to propose it,
turn to the condition of the agricultural labourer, and,
very frequently, to that of the manufacturing one, and
answer the question. As those misfortunes and cala-
mities are incident to them all, but are not to be fore-
seen by any, each must provide against the contingency
personally and individually. Let the actuary then put
himself to work, and calculate the fund that poverty
must accumulate in order to free itself from the neces-
sity of assistance on these emergencies, and arithme-
tic, I think, will dispose of this class of objectors to the
poor laws. The cash of the empire, were it all trans-
mitted into the pockets of the poor, would not suffice
for this scheme of doing away with the necessity of
the poor laws. At first sight it is plain enough that it
would demand a capital of upwards of one hundred
and forty millions, placed out in the savings banks, to
meet the annual demand paid to the whole of the poor.
But this is a very superficial and inadequate view of
the case ; it supposes that the five or six millions now
expended upon them should be equally distributed
amongst, and borne by the whole number of the poor,
as is now done amongst the wealthy; whereas, as indi-
viduals would then have to sustain themselves without
assistance in any unforeseen sufferings that might befal
them, it follows that every individual must save up,
not only his share of the average expense which is
now incurred in behalf of his class, but that he should
§ XIII.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 179
provide against those more distressing and permanent
afflictions to which all are h'able^ at least, if he is to
avoid that which he is to regard as a disgrace — assis-
tance. At present the average annual expenditure
on a pauper may amount to about six pounds : it is
obvious, in the first place^ that the labouring class must
each of them provide a fund to meet this ; but this is
not all : in the alphabet of pauperism, though on the
average of the letters the sum mentioned may be that
expended on each, yet it is certain that two or three
of them may, and do receive many times as much
as that average ; all of them must therefore provide
against these more pressing cases, none knowing where
the lot will fall. On this view of the subject (and its
justness cannot be disputed), the savings of the poor
ought to amount to at least a second national debt. The
proposition is preposterous. It may be said, indeed,
that throwing the poor on their own resources would
greatly diminish this expense ; so it might on tbe plan
of beggary and starvation. There is no difficulty on that
head, with some : but, consistently with the dictates
of justice and mercy, we deny that the expense ought
to be materially reduced ; on the contrary, most writers
of real experience and humanity, from Sir W. Petty
downwards, have maintained that it is an item in the
national disbursements that stands in need, rather, of
being increased. Let any one cast his eyes over Sir
Frederick Morton Eden's work on the poor, and see, in
the parochial returns, in many of wbich the objects
receiving relief are described, and their ages specified,
and determine how many he could erase ! I am tempted
N2
180 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [§ XIII.
to give a list or two of these, but I shall content my-
self with referring to the entire work \
But perhaps it may be replied, they might be
in a club or friendly society, so as to obviate this ob-
jection ; and this to as wide an extent as possible, is
highly desirable, were those institutions placed under
different regulations to what they usually are at pre-
sent; but even then, they never could become so
comprehensive and universal as to supersede the ne-
cessity for poor laws. But we may retort, on those
who urge the foregoing proposition, the question —
what do the poor laws form but a great national
club, or, as our Saxon ancestors would have deno-
minated it, a guild, to which all that are qualified
contribute, in behalf of the distressed members? I
early learnt this doctrine from a pauper who had
in his better days kept his equipage, but who had
lost his fortune by a generous act, which elevated
his character as much as it depressed his condition :
he disdained alms ; but he gratefully took the paro-
chial pittance : " I have," said he, " paid largely to
this national fund in my better days ; and in my turn
I need its benefit and am not ashamed to receive it.'*
But further : supposing the poor, I mean the labour-
ing classes throughout the kingdom, were put upon
this plan of universal saving ; if there be the least
truth in true poUtical economy (not the unintelligible,
paradoxical, prophetic jargon now so denominated,
but that founded upon the just principles, sober sense,
* See, in corroboration of this view of the subject, an able pam-
phlet, by Mr. Rogers, of Sheffield ; who speaks as to the imprac-
ticability of materially reducing the expense of sustaining the
poor, from personal experience.
§ XIII.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 181
and sound experience of mankind,) were they for that
purpose to diminish the expenses of their present mode
of Hving, and instead of " wheat-bread eaters" become
*^ potatoe eaters," to take up the profound observation
of our emigration report, — is it not evident that the
remuneration of their labour would be diminished in
precisely the same ratio ? I understand it to be a uni-
versally acknowledged axiom, that the wages of labour
have a constant tendency to accommodate themselves
to the actual average expenses of those rendering it.
If there be the least truth in this, the proposal to the
working classes, that they should diminish their daily
expenditure, in order to save money, would only have
the effect, if attended to universally, of diminishing the
remuneration of their labour precisely in the same
proportion as they had diminished their comforts.
The fact is, that nothing but the spur of necessity oc-
casions the bulk of mankind to labour at all, and they
only labour up to their necessity ^ Poverty is the
great weight which keeps the social machine going :
remove that, and the gilded hands would not long be
seen to move aloft, nor the melodious chimes be heard
again. Nothing on earth can be less philosophical
than the idea of making the whole of the labouring
classes hoarders of money ; meritorious instances of
this kind occur, it is true, but it should be recollected
that they can exist only as exceptions : but to render
these general, were it possible, would obviously defeat
the intended purpose, and derange the whole social
system.
(4.) But allowing all these impossibilities to be sur-
* Dr. Franklin, Essays, vol. ii. p. 166.
182 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [§ Xill.
mounted^ that, as the poor reduced their habits of
living, their wages should still remain as they are, and
that they should individually be enabled to save, so
as to provide against the misfortunes to which all
are liable, what would be the effect of this uni-
versal parsimony? This is no difficult question to
ansAver, by those who recollect that, with the excep-
tion of] comparatively speaking, a small class, the
producers and the consumers are reciprocally iden-
tified. To realize the scheme of superseding the poor
laws, and in a great measure private charity, by this
system of universal saving, the great mass of the
community must content themselves with a greatly-
diminished consumption, either of agricultural or ma-
nufactured produce, or both. Surely no one needs
to be reminded of the instant and inevitable conse-
quences of their doing either. Let them be reduced,
as it respects their living, to Irish, or, if we may
credit Sir John Sinclair, to Scotch fare^; and what
need is there for the produce of the pasturage of
England or Ireland, nine-tenths of which, at least, are
consumed by those who, if put upon this saving plan,
must universally, or, not to speak in extremes, ge-
nerally abstain? Then as it respects the manufactures
of the country^ to which_, after all, the commonalty of
the realm are the main support ; if the demand for
clothes, furniture, and every other convenience of life
now enjoyed by them, and all the product of human
^ " In Scotland the greater proportion of the labouring classes of
the community hardly ever taste animal food, but live upon por-
ridge, bread, beer, and water-kail, as it is called." — (Sinclair's
Code of Health and Longevity, p. 539.)
§ Xm.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 183
labour, should be greatly diminished, and consequently
so much fewer be manufactured, the result must be
again equally fatal. A calculation in evidence of this
might easily be made, but it is unnecessary. Take
the numbers of the class in question as low as you
can, and make the diminution in their daily expendi-
ture as little as is consistent with the proposal, and it
will be instantly seen that, if this disinterested recom-
mendation of modern philanthropy could be carried
into effect, a single year would throw millions out of
employment, and consequently out of bread ; and ruin,
beyond all hope of recovery, the finances of the
country. You would have got rid of the poor laws,
it is true ; but you would at the same time have deso-
lated your pastures, closed your manufactories, emptied
your exchequer, and spread universal idleness and beg-
gary ; in a word, after you had robbed the poor, you
would become national bankrupts, with the consola-
tion of having richly deserved your fate.
(5.) But we have not yet quite done with this pro-
position, that the poor should be compelled so to lay
up against a time of sickness or distress, or loss of
employment, or, lastly, old age, as not to burden the
public; or that they should otherwise be left to their
fate under such circumstances. Another remark will
serve to show the nature of this proposal, and, I hope,
hold it up to the contempt and abhorrence it deserves.
Do those who make it to the poor, address it to the
other and higher orders of society, where its adoption
would be far more reasonable, practicable, and just?
Have any of the political economists, who have uttered
such vehement things against poverty in this particu-
184 IRELAND; ITS EVILS^ [§ XIII.
lar, held forth that the ministers, the chancellors, the
judges, and all other servants of the crown ; — that all
puhHc officers, civil, military, or naval; — that allhishops
and ministers of the church, of all orders and degrees ;
I say, have they proposed, when the health of these
fails, or they have advanced far in years, so as to be
no longer fully capable of performing the duties of
their several callings, that they should at once resign
them, and give up their emoluments without any
equivalent, half-pay, pension, superannuated allow-
ance, or consideration whatsoever ? Yet most of these
have private fortunes, many of them ample ones;
while the bounty of the country, in the mean time_,
enables them to put the saving plan into execution,
without, in many instances, sacri6cing an iota of their
personal comforts. But, no: it is held quite proper
that many of these should be continued in the enjoy-
ment of their entire incomes till death, and that,
under one denomination or another, nearly all the
rest should have retiring allowances, amounting, on
the whole, few as their numbers comparatively are, to
milhons. Da prcetori; da deinde tribuno\ as of old;
but that the wretched should receive anything, — that
the poor worn-out hind, who has had the misfortune
to survive his strength, should have a morsel of the
produce of those fields which he has tilled for half a
century, — or that the cripple who has been maimed in
some of the boasted manufactories of the country,
should be allowed a few daily pence at the public
cost; — this is the grievance, according to our poli-
tical economists! We are persuaded to use such
* See Juvenal, sat. i.
§ XIII.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 185
far worse than a heathen poet recommends that his
countrymen should treat a worn-out heast of burden :
** Hunc quoqu^, ubi aut morbo gravis, aut jam segnior annis,
Deficit, abde domo, nee turpi ignosce senectse."
I would here guard myself against misrepresenta-
tion ; I would not have the public servants of the
country deserted by a just and grateful people, and on
this very ground I protest against the most essential,
though the humblest of these, the poor worn-out
labourer, being
*' Deserted in his utmost need
By those his former labours fed 1"
And nothing in this day is more astonishing than the
constantly repeated exhortations that we should do
so, even considered with a view, simply, to their
unfairness.
Cunning, Lord Bacon somewhere says, is left-
handed wisdom ; selfishness is, I think, generally
found to be folly; it is always founded on injustice.
Let us, then, consult a different guide ; the subject is
very ancient, and one of universal interest, and we
are not likely to understand it the worse, if we take
the lights of reason, religion, and experience in ex-
amining it.
(6.) In defending a legal provision for the destitute
poor, which I take to be the principle of the poor laws
of England, I argue, first, that it is agreeable to the
strictest justice_, or, in other words, —
First, The poor have a right to relief founded in
the nature of things. To prove this would, an age
ago, have been deemed quite superfluous ; the new
school has, however, ventured to contradict this right,
and in no very hesitating terms, Mr. Malthas, with
186 IRELAND; 1T8 EVILS, [§ XIU.
whom I have chiefly to do, asserted long ago, that
such have " no claim of right to the smallest portion
of food ;" and further, that " they have no business to
be where they are^:" and, that he is consistent in his
opinion, his late evidence fully shows. I shall argue
the point with him in other words than my own, as
the powerful reasons adduced will then have the weight
of authorities which, on such a matter, it will require
some little effrontery to contemn.
Passing over heathen writers (many of whom have
been very explicit upon this point) with this simple
observation, that it seems strange that, in an argument
in favour of the rights of humanity_, a successful
appeal might be made from the Christianity of the
modern school to the Heathenism of the ancient one;
I shall adduce the authority of those who have written
expressly on this point, since the establishment of the
present state of things, — confining myself to a very
few, but those of an order to whom numbers could
add no additional weight.
Grotius, speaking of this right_, thus expresses him-
self: "Let us now see whether men may not have
a right to enjoy, in common, those things that are
already become the properties of other persons ; which
question will, at first, seem strange, since property
seems to have swallowed up that right, which one
man may lay claim to in common with the rest. But
this is a mistake ; for we must examine into the
designs and intentions of those who first introduced
these particular properties, which we may imagine to
be such as deviated the least from natural justice. For,
if even written laws are always to be explained in that
' Malihus, Essay, p. 531.
§ XIII.] AND THEIlt REMEDIES. 187
sense which comes nearest to common equity, much
more customs, then, which are unconfined, and not
at all chained down to the letter of the law. From
whence it follows, that, in a case of absolute necessity,
that former right of using things, as if they still re-
mained in common, must revive and be in full force \'*
He afterwards states, that '^such a right is for the
preservation of natural equity, against the rigour and
severity of property and dominion ;" but adds, that
" some precautions are to be regarded, lest this liberty
should go too far," and points out the very mode our
law prescribes. The same profound author goes on
to say, that " this is a received opinion among divines"
(he could not now so assert) ; and remarks, that, in the
original of government, there were some exceptions
in cases of the hke nature. *^'^For," says he, '^'^ if they,
who were first concerned in that division of things
we now see, could be asked their opinions in this
matter, they would answer the same as we assert."
Puffendorf, in his Rights of Nature and of Nations,
takes a somewhat different view of the subject, but
expresses himself in still stronger terms, and more at
large ; I must, however, content myself with merely
referring to the sixth chapter of the second book of
his work, ^'^ De jure et favore necessitatis ;" where the
reader will find the subject amply discussed^
I shall only quote another foreign writer on the
subject; Montesquieu. "The state," says he, "owes
to every citizen a certain subsistence, a proper nourish-
ment, convenient clothing, and a kind of life not in-
' Grotius, De Jure Bel. ac Pacis. 1. ii. c. ii. §1,2.
Puffendorf, De Jure Nat. et Gent. 1. ii. c. vi. 4to. Scan. 1672,
188 IRELAND; ITS EVlLS, [§ XIII*
compatible with health." Whenever it happens, that,
amongst the numerous persons engaged in different
branches of trade, some suffer, and he observes it is
impossible it should be otherwise, he does not pro-
nounce that such have no claim to the smallest portion
of food ; but, on the contrary, " C'est pour lors que
I'etat a besoin d'apporter un prompt secours ^"
Mr. Malthus is very witty on I'Abbe Raynal, for
talking of "le droit de subsister," saying, that a man
has just as good a right to live a hundred years ^
His wit will, however, appear rather ridiculous, when
transferred to our next authority. Locke says,
' Reason tells us, that all men have a right to their
subsistence ; and, consequently, to meat and drink,
and such other things as nature affords for their pre-
servation. We *^'know," says he elsewhere, *' that
God has not left one man so to the mercy of another,
that he may starve him if he please. God, the Lord
and Father of all, has given no one of his children
such a property in his peculiar portion of the things
of this world, but that he has given his needy brother
a RIGHT to the surplusage of his goods, so that it can-
not jMs/Zy be denied him when his pressing wants call
for it^." Mr. Malthus, it is well known, has put a
case or two, and hideous ones they are, and hideously
determined*; so does this great writer, but he disposes
of them very differently. " What," says he, ^^ is to be
done in this case ? I answer : the fundamental law of
nature being, that all, as much as may be, should be
* Montesquieu, De I'Esprit des Loix, 1. xxiii. ch. 29.
* Malthus, Essay on Population, p. 532.
3 Locke on Gov., book i. ch. iv. § 42. * Malthus, p. 540, &c.
§ XIII.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 189
preserved^ it follows, that if there be not enough fully
to satisfy both, — he that hath, and to spare, must
remit something of his full satisfaction, and give way
to the pressing and preferable right of those who are
in danger to perish without it\"
Blackstone, stating, under the head of rights of
persons, the law authorizing the wretched and indi-
gent to demand from the more opulent part of the
community the necessaries of life, declares it to be
"a provision, dictated by the principles of society^."
Paley asserts the natural right of the poor to sub-
sistence in the most explicit and forcible terms. I
shall only quote a few words from him ; in which it
will be seen how directly he contradicts our more
modern jurist, who says the poor have " no claim as
of right to the smallest portion of food :" he, on the
contrary, asserts that " the poor have a claim founded
on the law of nature," and argues upon it at large,
concluding thus : — ''' When, therefore, the partition
of property is rigidly maintained against the claims of
impotence or distress, it is maintained in opposition
to the intention of those who made it, and to His
who is the supreme proprietor of every thing, and who
has filled the world with plenteousness, for the sus-
tentation and comfort of all he sends into it ^"
(7.) Secondly : the poor have a sacred claim to relief,
founded on divine revelation.
In the institutions of the Jewish legislator, which,
as Montesquieu somewhere observes, were to the
' Locke, Treatise on Government, book ii. p. 31 1.
^ Blackstone, Commentaries, book i. ch. i. p. 131.
3 Paley, Moral and Polit. Philosophy, book iii. chap. v. p 154.
190 IRELAND; ITS EVILS^ [§ XIII.
Israelites positive laws^ though we read them only as
preeepts^ the legal provision for the poor holds a most
conspicuous place, and has^ probably^ been the foun-
dation of all similar institutions throughout Chris-
tendom. The tithe of every third year^ stored for the
purpose ^ ; the remnant of the crops of every year
(fixed at one-sixtieth part ^) ; the share of the entire
produce of every seventh year, independently of
sundry other benevolent ordinances, of much impor-
tancC;, made in their behalf, — formed a provision for
the poor of Israel which has as yet never been
equalled in any country of the world. On the lowest
possible computation, were that institution transferred
to England, it would treble the amount now raised
amongst us. And this ample provision was carried
into effect and penally enforced^. Besides all this, it
ought to be remembered that the fundamental insti-
tutions of the Theocracy, such as the minute division
of property, and its restoration to the original owners,
or their descendants, every fiftieth year^ preserved,
perhaps, a vaster mass of the population in equal and
easy circumstances than was ever the case with any
other people. The learned Selden has written on the
provision for the poor of Israel, and to him I must refer
for further information on this interesting subject. I
shall not, however, omit confronting by this divine insti-
tution a modern objection to our own poor laws, and
certainly the most absurd, notwithstanding its preva-
lence, of any that has hitherto been advanced. It is now
' Dent. XV. 28. Tobit, i. 8. Josephus, p. 349.
• Selden, De Jure Nat. et Gent., ch. vi. p. 692.
' Ibid,, Synedr., lib. ii. ch. 13. n. 8.
§ XIII.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 191
said that a public provision for the poor is totally subver-
sive of the very principle and nature of charity. Such
might as well affirm that the voluntary fulfilment
of those other duties of social or public life, which
happen to be recognised and enjoined by law (and
they are many), likewise loses all its value. But to
the point. Is not voluntary charity connected with
this public provision for the poor, in these sacred
records ? Let those who doubt it, turn to the laws
and exhortations of Moses and the prophets, and
they will soon be satisfied on this head. Notwith-
standing the legal relief prescribed, still the duty of
personal charity, the liberality with which it should
be dispensed^ and the generous feelings with which its
exercise was to be accompanied, are solemnly dictated :
"Thou shalt surely give him ; and thy heart shall not
be grieved when thou givest unto him : because that
for this thing the Lord thy God shall bless thee in all
thy works, and in all that thou puttest thine hand
unto. For the poor shall never cease out of the land.
Therefore, I command thee saying ; Thou shalt open
thine hand wide, to thy brother, to thy poor, and thy
needy in the land," (Deut. xv. 10, 11).
I cannot refrain from going further into the sub-
ject, as it respects the institutions of Moses. We have
seen that the right of the poor and their business to
be where they were are there fully recognised : even
the term itself is sanctioned in holy writ. And only
suppose that the Deity has the same merciful consi-
deration for an Irishman as for an Israelite, and then
some of the passages may, perhaps, be found striking.
God is represented there as the bestower of this right.
192 IRELAND ; ITS EVILS, [§ XIH.
*' Behold, God is mighty, and despiseth not any ; he
is mighty in strength and wisdom : he giveth right ^
to the poor," (Job, xxxvi. 5, 6.) As the upholder of
it; " The Lord will maintain the cause of the afflicted
and the right of the poor," (Ps. cxl. 12.) As its
awful vindicator : '^ Woe unto them that take away
the right of the poor:" (Isa. x. 2.) The foundation
of this right is furthermore revealed to us ; and an
awful and unalienable one it is ! " The land is mine_,
and ye are the the strangers and sojourners with me !"
(Lev. XXV. 23.) On the sufficiency of Divine Provi-
dence : " Thou, O God, hast prepared of thy bounty
for the poor!" (Ps. Ixviii. 10.) On the feelings of
human kindred : " Thy poor brother !" (Deut. xv. 7.)
On respect for human misery : " Thou shalt not vex
him; thou shalt surely give him!" (Deut. xv.) On
the vicissitudes of human life : " Love ye therefore
the strangers, for ye were strangers!" (Deut. x. 19.)
On the grateful remembrance of past mercies : '^ It
shall be for the stranger, for the fatherless and the
widow ; and thou shalt remember that thou wert a
bondman in the land of Egypt:" (Deut. xxiv. 21, 22.)
On the certain prospect of human suffering : " Blessed
be the man that considereth the poor and needy :
the Lord will deliver him in his time of trouble ; will
preserve ; will comfort ; will strengthen him, when he
lieth sick upon his bed," (Ps. xli. 1 — 3.) It is guaran-
teed by the promises of God : " For this thing the
Lord thy God will bless thee:" (Deut. xv. 10.) By
' That no false gloss is put upon the term right, see Schulteus,
one of the most learned Hebraists of modern times, on Proverbs,
iii. 27, p. 25.
§ XIII.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 193
his denunciations : " If thou afflict them in any wise,
and they cry at all unto me, I will surely hear their
cry; and my wrath shall wax hot, and I will kill you
with the sword^ and your wives shall be widows and
your children fatherless !" (Exod. xxii. 23, 21.) It is
further represented as a right, for the neglect of which
the observance of no other duties, however sacred,
will atone : *' Incense is an abomination to me !
Reheve the oppressed; judge the fatherless; plead for
the widow !" (Isa. 1. 13, 17.) " Is not this the fast
that I have chosen ? — to deal thy bread to the hungry !
and that thou bring the poor that are cast out, to thy
house ! when thou seest the naked, that thou cover
him ; and that thou hide not thyself from thine own
flesh !" (Isa. Iviii. 6, 7.) And lastly, and above all, the
Deity has connected this right of the poor with the
highest and most distinguished attributes of His nature,
and placed His pity for them amongst His brightest
perfections and sublimest titles. " Sing unto God, sing
praises to his name, extol him that rideth upon the
heavens, by his name Jah, and rejoice before him. —
A father to the fatherless, a judge of the widows, is
God, in his holy habitation," (Ps. Ixviii. 4, 5.) Hear
Moses's last, sublime description of him : *^ The
Lord your God is God of gods, and Lord of lords,
a great God, a mighty and a terrible ! He doth exe-
cute the judgment of the fatherless and widow, and
loveth the stranger in giving him food and raiment !
Love ye therefore the strangers !"
Institutions like these, and so guaranteed, had
doubtless a wonderful eftect on the people on whom
they were imposed. We are told, now, that this
0
194 IRELAND; ITS EVILS^ [§ XIII.
care and preservation of the poor would increase
population ; this^ however, was regarded by the di-
vine philosopher and legislator of Israel as a signal
mark of the divine complacency, and experience
proved it such. Hence he exultingly adds to the
passage last quoted ; ^* Thy fathers went down into
Egypt with threescore and ten persons, and now the
Lord thy Go© hath made thee as the stars of heaven
for multitude ! "
And can a question be started whether the Chris-
tian religion lessened the claims and rights of the
poor, and relaxed the duty of attending to them ? or
placed them upon a yet broader foundation, and
fenced them round by the deepest motives that time
or eternity could inspire ? It would be an insult
upon the spirit and letter of that religion to pursue
such an inquiry. Even Bolingbroke saw clearly
enough that *^ general benevolence and universal cha-
rity are the distinguishing badges of Christianity."
A regular provision for the poor was amongst the
first of the apostolic institutions*, was established
wherever Christianity was spread^, and will never
cease till its spirit shall be utterly extinguished.
In closing these observations upon the sacred
right of the poor to relief, as further confirmed by
divine revelation, I must remark that this title does
not rest upon the foundation of individual worthi-
iiess, nor, indeed, does personal demerit abrogate it ;
though such circumstances may, properly enough,
'Acts,v. ICor. xvi. 2. 2 Cor. viii. Romans, xv. 26. Gal.ii. 10.
^ Cornel. Ep. ad Fab. ap. Euseb. lib. vi. c. 43. Chrys. Horn. 67,
in Matth. See Bingham's Origines Ecclesiasticse, vol. ii. p. 286,
vol. vii. p. 446.
§XIir.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 195
be taken into due consideration in its ministration.
It is placed upon a very different basis — upon human
suffering, and the pleasure of God that it should be
relieved. If there be one point more pre-eminently
clear in our religion than another, it is that we are
totally inhibited from making merit the sole passport
to our mercy ; the foundation of the modern code.
Every precept touching this divine virtue instructs
us to the contrary \ and I defy those who hold the
opposite notion to produce one in their favour. A
feeling that has to be excited by some delicate senti-
mental touches, some Shandean scene, and is to be
under the guardianship of worldly policy, may be the
virtue of political economy ; but this fancy-charity has
nothing in common with that disinterested, devoted,
unbounded benevolence, which, as Tertullian says, is
the mark and brand of Christianity. Nor must I omit
to add that, agreeably to this religion, the feelings of
the poor are no more to be insulted in relieving them
than are their wants to be neglected. Mr. Malthus
may, indeed, say, that ^^ dependent poverty ought to
be held disgraceful^;" but to save it from that disgrace,
God has taken poverty under his peculiar protection,
and it remains so connected, in every form of religion,
throughout the earth ^. " Jesus Christ" (I quote from
Tillotson) "^ chose to be a beggar, that we, for his sake,
' I shall only refer to our Lord's sermon on the Mount, Matt. v.
43 — 48, Luke, vi. 33 — 35, &c., and to his parable of the Prodigal
Son, in proof of this. Let those who choose preach another gos-
pel ; !)ut it is not Christianity.
• Malihus, p. 410.
' Our Saxon ancestors called the poor s"^er peappn, God's poor.
Spehr.an, Concil, vol. i. p. 523.
196 IRELAND; ITS EVILS^ [§ XIII.
might not despise the poor^:" or, to use the language
of another distinguished prelate, *^ he seems studi-
ously to have bent his whole endeavours to vindicate
the honour of depressed humanity, to support its
weakness, to countenance its wants, to ennoble its
misery, and to dignify its disgrace^."
Perhaps so much allusion to our religion and its
sacred records, may appear very strange in a pam-
phlet of the present day, and demand an excuse ; I
will therefore give one_, in the terms of the reverend
expounders of our common law : " Christianity is
part and parcel of the law of the land". It became
more particularly so as our immortal legislator, Alfred,
left it ; who embodied into his institutions the entire
spirit, and much of the letter of those passages to
which I have been appealing ; and with whom that
enlarged and systematic charity for which England
has, happily, been long distinguished, first com-
menced.
(8.) Lastly, then_, I remark that the poor have
a legal right to relief, and one that has been con-
firmed by innumerable acts of parliament, and en-
joyed by them for a succession of ages, and which,
when granted, Avas only a substitute for a far more
ancient and ample provision, of which they had
been deprived. Mr. Malthus says that they have
^'^no claim as of right;" the constitution of the coun-
try says (and here again I express myself in the
words of Paley) that ^'^the poor have the same right
to that proportion of a man's property that the laws
assign them, that the man himself has to the remain-
' Arbp. Tillotson, Sermons, p. ^SQ. - Bishop Hurd, Sermons.
§XlIl.j AND THEIR REMEDIES. 197
der^" That much alteration is requisite in the pre-
sent code of our poor laws^ I freely admit ; not with
a view to overreach the poor, or to serve ourselves ;
but with a view to benefit them. A plan to this effect
I have long considered, and shall, I hope, be enabled
to submit to the public ; the effect of which would
indeed be a considerable diminution in the charge of
their sustentation, though I trust the deserving part
of them would be greatly benefited, and the rest
not deserted. On this, however, I shall not at pre-
sent enter, further than to say that the departure
from the original principle has been the great error,
and its restoration and accommodation to the altered
condition of the country the necessary remedy : con-
nected wath this, a system of assistances seems neces-
sary and desirable, which would likewise become
distinctions to the meritorious, and which, without en-
tailing on the country one farthing of expense^ would,
by appealing to their best feelings, make our great
national charity a mighty lever in raising the moral
condition of the poor; instead of being, as it now some-
times is, the means of its depression. But to return :
(9.) If the poor have this right to assistance on the
ground of natural justice, policy, and religion, it is no
wonder that their systematic relief has been esta-
blished in so many nations of the world ; for it is a
great mistake to suppose that such has been con-
fined to this^ and one or two other countries. The
former reasons were abundantly sufficient to intro-
duce such a system into the free states of antiquity.
In Greece, we know such to have been the case. In
' Paley, Moral and Polit. Philosophy, book iii. ch. 5, p. 162.
198 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [§ XIII.
Athens, for instance*, in Rhodes*, in Sparta, in
Crete ^ in Phoeacia^ in short, throughout the states
generally^. In ancient Rome, the distributions were
carried to the most lavish extent. It does not, how-
ever, appear that slaves, then forming so numerous a
body, were included in these provisions ; the honour
of stooping to the lowest degradation of poverty and
wretchedness was reserved for that religion, in which
" Mercy and Truth have met together." Under this
religion, the vast endowments for the poor were, per-
haps, carried to even a mischievous length ; and none
can read of their magnitude, and indiscriminate dis-
tributions in Spain ^, in Italy '^, Naples ^ and elsewhere,
* " Tliere was a poor law in Athens." (Mitford, vol. iii. p. 15.)
Demosthenes says, — " Instead of depriving the poor of what the
state bestows, we ought, if there were not this provision, to find
out some other means of supplying their necessities." See the
whole of his fourth Philippic. Two oboli, at least, besides other
largesses, were daily distributed to the poor, in Demosihenes's
time, equal to half a bushel of wheat per week. (Leland's transla-
tion, vol. ii. p. 12.) See the beneficial eft'ect of this provision, Iso-
crates, Orat. Areop. 8vo. Cantab, pp. 290, 291.
^ The Rhodians laid it down as a maxim, that every man should
work while he was able for his own maintenance, but should be as
well maintained when he was no longer so, at the expense of the
state. (Strabon. Geog. lib. xiv. p. 357. T. Liv. lib. xlvii,)
^ In Crete, Aristotle informs us, the poorest citizens were pro-
vided for at the expense of the state ; in Sparta, however, he says,
those partook of a like provision who were capable of bearing a
proportion of the expense. (Re Repub. lib. iii. ; Dr. Gillies' Trans-
lation, b. ii., p. 112.)
'' Homer, Odys. lib. vi.
^ Demosthenes, Philippic iv. Menander, Serm. 37.
* Townsend's Travels in Spain.
' Eustace, Classical Tour through Italy. Baretti, Account of
Manners and Customs of Italy, vol. ii. p. 100. Arthur Young,
Travels in France. The charitable foundations in the City of
Milan alone amount to 3,000,000 livres (£87,500). Population
126,000, (p. 645.) In Florence there are 37 hospitals and alms'
houses ; one of which has 70,000 crowns yearly revenue. (Ray's
Observations, &:c., p. 325 )
Eustace. Classical Tour, &c.
§X1H.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 199
without fearing that mischiefs have been occasioned
of a serious nature by their lavish profusion. In
Austria, we hear of great exertions to sustain the
poor, especially in Vienna ^_, and other Catholic cities
of Germany*. In Bavaria, there are law^s obliging each
community to maintain its own poor^. In Protes-
tant Germany they are still better provided for'*. The
admirable plan by which this is accomplished in
Hamburgh has long been before the British public^.
Nor is Russia, whose thin population one might sup-
pose would prevent the establishment of any general
plan in their favour, without a regular system in fa-
vour of the poor^ Of the humanity of Switzerland
I need say nothing ; in addition to foundations, mag-
nificent in relation to the people's numbers and their
means '^j " every Svviss," as every Englishman, *^ is a
burgher somewhere, and has a right to assistance in
his parish^." In Norway, though we are told by Mr.
Malthus there is no established provision for the
poor^, we know to the contrary; there is one, adapted
' Reisbeck, Travels through Germany ; quoted in Collections for
the Poor, p. 79.
'^ See an Account of the Method of Maintaining the Poor in
INIanheim, Este's Journey, p. 337.
2 Count Rumford, History of the Public Establishment for the
poor in Bavaria, ch. i.
" Render's Tour in Germany, p. 74.
* Reports of the Society for bettering the condition of the Poor,
vol. ii. p. 39.
^ " The aged and infirm are provided with food and raiment, and
lodging, at the expense of the owner of the estate." — (Dr. Clarke,
Travels in Russia.) As to others who may be in want, in many
parts of the empire " there is a college of general provision in each
government." — (Tooke's View of the Russian Empire, vol. ii.
p. 181, &c.) The great charitable foundations in the cities need
not be pointed out.
' Stolbcrg, Travels, &c, vol. ii. pp. 137, 138.
^Sismondi, Switzerland, vol. i. p. 452. " Malthus, Essay, p. 547.
200 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [§ XIJI.
to the condition of the country, and the scanty and
scattered state of its population. Dr. Clarke says, the
paupers he saw there (and there were twelve hundred
in the town of Trond, consisting of ten thousand inha-
bitants only) were provided for_, and apparently better
than in England \ Respecting Sweden, I must direct
the reader to the note below_, where he will see how
safe it is to rely on Mr. Malthus's authority, when he
speaks about the poor ; they are maintained^, and al-
most precisely in the same manner as in England^
' Dr. Clarke, Travels in Scandinavia, p. 637.
' Mr. Malthus speaks thus on Sweden, whose condition he pro-
fesses to have examined so closely, and consequently says so much
about in his work : — " In Sweden, from the deaths, which are not
unfrequently owing to the general failure of crops in an unpro-
pitious climate, and the impossibility of great importations in a poor
country, an attempt to establish a system of parochial relief, such
as that in England, if it were not speedily abandoned, from the
physical impossibility of executing it, would level the property of the
kingdom from one end of it to the other, and convulse the social
system in such a manner as absolutely to prevent it from recovering
to its former state on the return of plenty," (p. 546.) It has been
in the very same strain that he has been recently alarming the
fears, and rousing the selfishness of the wealth of Ireland against
the introduction of poor laws there. Now, what will the reader
say, when he is informed that, notwithstanding this " physical
impossibility," there are poor laws in Sweden? — and certainly,
considering the means of the people, the principle is carried to a
much greater extent even than in England, for, in addition to the
relief of the distressed, the education of the poor is secured, in their
national institution. I3ut 1 will give the facts in the language of a
gentleman, who, like Mr. M. and his friends, was a literary traveller
to the same country, and from the sister university. " The poor cot-
tagers are not neglected by the government in point of education,
nor in other respects sparingly supplied. Parochial schools are
universally kept up, and there are few among the peasants but what
are able to read and write." — This is admirable ; but it is to the
following passage I particularly direct the reader's attention.
" With regard to their maintenance when in distress, constant
parochial aid is afforded^ and a poor-house supported in every parish,
at the expense of a light rate upon the property of the wealthier
inhabitants. The funds, moreover, arising from the chanty boxes
for gratuitous donations, are in part destined to the same bene-
§ XIII.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 201
Even in poor Iceland, there is an adequate provi-
sion for the poor by law. In Flanders, throughout
the rural parts, there are permanent funds, as well as
eleemosynary foundations, for the sustentation of the
poor\ which accounts for the absence of beggary^
compared with France, though the latter has little
more than half the population ; while in the great
cities the provision is, or at least was_, immense^. Re-
garding Holland, to which the former country is now
united, under the common appellation of the Nether-
lands, nothing, I presume, need be said in praise of
their kind, constant, and unwearied attention to all
their poor^; it has long been the theme of universal
volent purpose ; a distribution of their receipts is made to a certain
number of out-pensioners, as well as the inmates of the poor-house,
who are generally portioned in four classes : the sick ; the
aged ; those who have large families, and those who are helpless
from extreme poverty." (Journal of a Tour through Sweden, &c. in
1813, and 1814, by F. T. James, Esq., p. 105.) The charity of
Sweden, from its metropolis ♦ to its humblest village t, has long been
noticed. And I must add that such misrepresentations as the fore-
going, representing Sweden as destitute of parochial relief, with
the intention of disparaging our own system, are most reprehensible.
I regret to say 1 shall have to present numerous instances of this
nature, and of a still more glaring character, in other sections of the
work of which this forms a part.
^ RadclifF, Report on the Agric. of Flanders, p. 256. Este,
Journey, &c. p. 78.
^ Radcliff, Report on the Agric. of Flanders, p. 256. Ray, Ob-
servations, &c. p. 52.
^ Este, Journey, &c., pp. 78, 83. Thicknesse, Journey through the
Pais-bas.
* Mr. Malthus, having denied that England either can or ought
to sustain her poor, assigns three reasons why Holland has been
able to do so : these are " her extensive foreign trade, her numerous
colonial emigrations, compared with the smallness of her territory;
and, lastly, the extreme unhealthiness of the country, occasioning
a much greater average mortality than common in other states,'*
(p. 546.) Respecting the two first reasons, they are not *' very
peculiar circumstances;" as compared with England, her foreign
* Catteau,, View of Sweden, p. 202. t Boweiij Geography, vol. i. p. 9S5.
202 IRELAND ; ITS EVILS, [§ XIII.
admiration. As to the nature of their laws, in re-
ference to this great object, Dr. Macfarlan says, '^from
a review of the Dutch poor laws and regulations, it
does not appear that they are materially different
to our own\"
On thus examining the different states of Europe,
it will be found, that the expense of maintaining the
poor in other countries is, on the aggregate, and in
proportion to their means^ often greater than here ;
while the superiority of our system, with the exception
of such countries as Holland and Sweden, and Swit-
zerland, where, indeed, a similar one prevails^ is too ob-
vious to universal observation to need a word in proof.
Dr. Johnson has said, that '' a decent provision
for the poor is the true test of civilization ;" but such
institutions are not, however, confined to Christendom.
Even the semi-barbarous countries of the East have
all of them some establishments of the same nature.
The poor are very amply provided for by the laws of
China ^. " In India there is a considerable quantity of
enaum, or charity lands set apartf or the maintenance
of the poor^." By the institutions of Zoroaster^ pro-
perty is taxed one-tenth in order to be dispensed to
trade is not so great ; and her colonial emigrations, in proportion
to her population, far less also. But the last is the most singular
of all reasons ever advanced. Remembering that Holland is far
more densely peopled than this country — that the extreme un-
healthiness of its inhabitants should enable them the better to
sustain their poor, is one of the strangest ideas that ever entered
into a man*s head. No observations are wanting to point out
its absurdity.
* Macfarlan, Inquiries concerning the Poor, p. 218.
' Ta Tsing Leu Lee, or the Fundamental Laws of China ; trans-
lated by Sir G. Staunton, Section Ixxxix, " Care of the aged and
infirm." See the whole section. See also Du Halde (vol. ii. p. 65%
for a true definition of real charity.
' Dr.Tennant, State of India, p. 246. -
§ XIU.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 203
the poor, of which the priest is ordered to be merely
the ahnoner^ The Koran of Mahomet is very ex-
pHcit on the same duty^; nor are there wanting bene-
volent establishments wherever that religion prevails,
though defective both as to their objects and adminis-
tration. In Morocco there is a regular tax for the
poor^ ; and_, in the institutes of Timour or Tamerlane,
we find provision was made for all the poor, through-
out his extended empire*.
(10.) It may, perhaps, be expected some notice
should be taken of the method of maintaining the
poor by our northern fellow-subjects, which is deemed
by many the very model of national charity. I think
otherwise, for reasons that have been partly stated,
and others which shall now be very briefly expressed.
In the first place, it condemns the working-classes,
generally speaking, to that penury of living in order to
be able to provide for themselves, which, if universally
adopted, would be fatal to our agricultural and manu-
facturing prosperity^: it subjects the whole country
to ^' the nuisance of common begging^" and poverty
to that sordid and filthy state which is a yet greater
disgrace. This mendicity is " the pest that has long
annoyed and oppressed her, since the union of the
kingdoms, and probably long before it^." So that,
when some of our olden writers were complaining of
the burden of the poor-rates of England, Fletcher of
' Ancient Universal History, vol. ii. b. i. p. 79.
* A\ Koran, ch. 4, pp. 76, 117.
^ All Bey, Travels in Morocco, p. 94.
* Institutions of Timour, translated from the Persian by Major
Davy. See p. 349, kc.
' Sinclair, Health and Longevity, p. 539.
* Edinburgh Encyc. vol. xvii, p. 91. ' Ibid. p. 90.
204 IRELAND ; ITS EVILS, [§ XIII.
Saltoun deplored that, in Scotland, one-fifth of the
people were in a state of actual mendicity, and great
numbers dying yearly for want. Nor is it fair to
draw comparisons as to the number of our own poor,
who stand in need of relief, and who receive it, with
such a district as Scotland, where the parsimony with
which it is administered has the effect of sending
great numbers across the border, to the great dispa-
ragement of the working-classes of England, whose
labour is thus greatly interfered with both by the
poor of Scotland and Ireland.
There are, however, poor laws in Scotland, and if
they are neither so efficient nor so liberal as those of
this country, it is no credit to the wealthy ; it is the
result of an understanding among the rich to inter-
cept that relief of the poor to which God and nature
gave them a just claim, and which their own legisla-
ture has certainly awarded them\ They are, how-
ever, in partial operation, and that circumstance, com-
bined with parochial funds, and the prevalent and dis-
graceful practice of begging superadded, make up the
present practice of sustaining the poor of Scotland,
excepting in those parishes where the English plan
prevails, which is rapidly extending, and will be found
essentially necessary, especially as manufactures pre-
vail ; and I am happy in observing, that in Edinburgh
and Glasgow the charitable establishments are as well
supported as in towns of a similar magnitude in
England. Elsewhere, however, the prospect is not
so cheering : '^ Where the poor law is not introduced,'*
' Mackenzie, Law of Scotland, p. 317. Macfavlan, Inquiries
concerning the Poor, pp. 199, 200.
§ Xin.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 205
we are informed, on the most unexceptionable autho-
rity, "^ there are a great many of the miseries which
are found in Ireland ^"
I perhaps ought to mention the very strong objec-
tions which a celebrated divine of that country has
recently made against a regular system of legal
charity in Scotland, and more especially his opinions
concerning our's, which he has expressed in the strong-
est manner. He has represented our poor as evincing,
in their character and conduct, " an utter recklessness
of habit ; profligacy; mutual abandonment of parents
and children^; rapacity^; shameless and abandoned pro-
fligacy "^ ;" in a word, as being a herd of brutes without
the instinctive feelings of the brute creation. This,
I am sure, he will be glad to know, on more certain
authority than casual observation can supply, is not
the character of the poor — no, nor yet that of the
relieved poor of England. Nor has he less mistaken,
as I hope, the feelings with which they are regarded :
the different ranks do not '*^look to each other with
all the fierceness and suspicion of natural enemies,"
nor "stand in the grim array of mutual hostility.'*
That such may be the representation in books of
political economy, I will not dispute ; but it is utterly
untrue in real life. But, not to dwell on these
topics, I will add, that if I object to the design Dr.
Chalmers avows of taking away the "right of the
poor," in favour of some other plan of supporting
them, my objections are greatly heightened when I
* Minutes of Evidence before the Committee of the House of
Lords on Ireland, 1824 ; A. Nimmo, Esq., p. 315.
* Dr. Chalmers, Civic Economy, p. 229.
' /6tc/. p. 347. * Ibid. Y^. 239.
206 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [§ XIII.
hear that plan explained. The making the poor the
principal persons to relieve poverty, seems as con-
trary to reason and scripture, as the supposition that
poverty, if properly dealt with, might be relieved with-
out much, or, often, any assistance whatsoever, is to
experience and common sense. The duties we owe
to such are, I think^ not to be discharged by " little
presents of courtesy," — " cheap and simple atten-
tions,"— " nameless graces and benignities^," and so
forth. The wretchedness to be succoured is rarely of
that pliable character to be thus tickled, by the empty
hand of wealth, into mirth and ecstacy. On the point
of divinity, it would ill become me to argue with him ;
otherwise I should have doubted whether we ought
not to " charge the rich " to be ready to distribute to
the constant necessities of the poor, rather than leave
their relief principally to themselves : whether this
^* be thou warmed and be thou clothed" plan is
that of Christianity ; it is certainly not that which
will satisfy our own feelings, or those of the poor^
thus to serve them by " carrying about analms-basket
of words*." As to Dr. Chalmers's, I am sure, unin-
tentional, misstatements, utterly subversive, as I think,
of his entire views, I shall attend to them on another
occasion ; in the mean time, I may safely leave it to
him whether there is not a far more formidable foe in
the path of true charity, than the one he has exclu-
sively combated, I mean ostentation in giving, rather
than ingratitude in receiving, — an evil which our
christian poet Cowper has so admirably pourtrayed in
his exhibition of Sunday-charity. Sure I am, that
' See Civic Economy. * Shakspeare.
§ XIII.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 207
little is said by the Divine Exemplar of that virtue
regarding the latter, and very much of the former
danger. Nationally speaking, the poor-laws of Eng-
land constitute^ to all intents and purposes^ a volun-
tarily charity ; and, while we know that the benevo-
lent object is fulfilled, individually we are well con-
tent to resign the consciousness of personal merit on
the occasion. We rejoice that our poor are delivered
by it from that uncertain and abject dependence^ which
is unbecoming the condition of our common nature,
as well as contrary to the elevating dictates of our
religion.
Dr. Chalmers, however, makes it out that the con-
trary system is the result of a ^^ right and reflecting
selfishness," and, in recommending his plan to Eng-
land, thus expresses himself: — " We want England
to put herself to school. We think that she needs
to go to school ; and^ when looking attentively to
those trial parishes, she is^ in fact, learning the first
lessons, and acquiring the sound rudiments of a sound
education. Those parishes will be to her the alphabet,
whence she may venture forward to achievements
that arc still more arduous ; and at length be able to
master those more complex and difficult results,
which now lie removed, on a distant and impracticable
background, from the eye of her understanding."
To this 1 would only remark, that England needs no
schooling to bring her to this state of national neglect
of the poor: it is one from which she formerly
emerged. We should soon be there again if, as one
of our poets expresses it, " we could go, like a crab,
backwards," and " subtihze ourselves into savages."
208 IRELAND ; ITS EVILS, [§ XIII.
Another author of the same country, and an honour
to it and his age^ gives a different view of the subject,
with whose opinion I shall conclude these allusions
to Scotland. " It is a duty upon every political
society," says Sir John Sinclair, " to provide for such
unhappy individuals, as, from the poverty of their
situation_, from sickness, want of employment, and
the various unavoidable misfortunes to which human
nature is hable, are unable to maintain themselves ;
and in no country have these generous principles been
carried to such an extent as in England, every native
of it being entitled to demand subsistence in the
parish in which he was born, or in which he has
acquired a settlement * ."
(11.) But to return to the general subject. In
answer to all the preceding statements, it may be said,
and, indeed, often has been, that the systematic relief
of the poor only aggravates the evil it is meant to
redress, and is but a relic of the remaining ignorance
and prejudice of the old world. Political economy,
through the medium of reviews and magazines, and
encyclopedias, sends us to the new_, in order to see
society without what it considers as its disgrace,
poverty and pauperism. " It is refreshing," they
exclaim, " to cross the sea to the new world, to the
United States_, where land is in abundance, labour
productive, industry almost unrestrained, and the con-
dition of poverty seldom and little known ^." State-
' Sinclair, Hist. Revenue of the Brit. Emp., vol. iii, p. 211.
^ Edinburgh Encyclopedia, Poor, p. 86. I quote this from a
work which, notwithstanding this mistake, appears to be very
ably conducted.
§ XIII.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 209
ments these which highly eulogized travellers confirm
to us on their own authority. One of these, speaking
of the same region, says, " where there are no idlers,
and, more than all, no poor ! ^" infected, however,
wdth the philosophic dread of population, they antici-
pate when the means of carrying off a superfluous
population must fail, and then comes pauperism with
all its train of evils. " The principle," therefore, will
not let them rest : they are alarmed for futurity ; po-
pulation, seen in embryo, haunts them perpetually, hke
Gay's ghost of an unborn child, which appeared to
frighten its guilty father into timely reparation.
All this would be very amusing, were it not for the
mischief such false statements inflict upon those who
credit them. A correspondent in the Edinburgh
Magazine complains bitterly of being deceived into
this opinion. " A late writer," says he, "^ in the
Edinburgh Review, says we have no poor rates. I
wish he was correct. My poor rates, last year,
amounted to ten dollars ; although this township and
the adjoining one have a workhouse with a farm of
two hundred acres, and more, for the employment and
support of the paupers. This, considering the high
rate of wages, the cheapness of food, and full employ-
ment for every one, is more, in proportion, than any
poor rates in England. There are sometimes from
twelve to fifteen hundred persons in the workhouse
in Philadelphia, and as many in that of New York.
Tliey cost, in Philadelphia, 100,000 dollars per annum,
• The Hon. F. de Roos, Personal Narrative of Travels in the.
United States, p. 24,
210 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [§ XIII.
and the whole system is miserably conducted ^" That
this statement is correct there is not the least reason
to doubt. I copy the following paragraph from an
American paper^ and it relates to the very period.
" The cost of supporting the poor, in Philadelphia,
has been diminished to that extent, that we under-
stand it is in contemplation to reduce the annual
assessment from 120,000 dollars to 90,0001" In the
somewhat larger city of New York, the annual ex-
penses of maintaining the poor, we learn on the decisive
testimony of Dr. Dwight, amounted, in the year 1811,
to 154,388 dollars, 88 cents': that there were 2,814
paupers admitted into the alms-house, from the 1st
of April, 1822, to the 1st of April, 1813; of whom
there were remaining, at the latter date, 1,265 per-
sons '*. Nor were these extraordinary years ; on the
contrary, the number of the poor has since greatly
increased : we learn from Bristed, that a memorial
addressed to the state legislature, in the month of
March, 1817, stated, " that, during last winter, fifteen
thousand paupers, that is to say, about a seventh of
our whole population received alms ^." He too takes
up the European notion, that poor-laws ought to be
abolished, and pauperism cured by being abandoned.
In addition to this, it appears there are, of humane and
charitable societies in that city, forty in number, which
are supported with spirit. The expense of one of
' Edinburgh Magazine, Letter dated May, 1825, p. 543.
- Philadelphia Gazette, Dec. 3, 1825.
3 Dwight, Travels in New England and New York, vol. iii.
pp. 455, 456. ' Ibid. p. 437.
^ Bristed, America and her Resources, p. 288.
§ XIII.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 211
these, in 1 816, is stated, by Warden, to have amounted
to 39,053 dollars ^ It needs not be added, that, in
the other city just mentioned, Philadelphia, as well as
in all others throughout the Union, similar institutions,
to the high honour of the country, are established.
But our traveller says, of America, " above all, there
are no poor !"
Let it not be supposed, that this provision for the
poor only became needful, or the burden it im-
posed heavy, as the population enlarged. Such, in-
deed, are the notions of our theorists, but nothing can
be further from the fact than either. Only a short
time after the settlers numbered only 21,200 souls,
according to Mr. Malthus^, Sir Joshua Child wrote
his Discourses on Trade ; in which able work he
distinguished New England as legally providing for
its poor^. A quarter of a century after this, we still
find that *^the inhabitants had to meet once a month,
sometimes every week, for relief of the poor ." In the
other states, likewise, we know that there was early a
settled provision made for them : in Virginia, for
instance^; and the pressure their maintenance occa-
sioned was proportionably the heaviest, when the popu-
lation was the smallest. Thus in 1742, when Boston
contained 1719 houses, and not many more than
16,000 inhabitants, there were 1000 poor widows ;
HI persons in the alms-house, and 36 in the work-
' Warden, Statistical, &c. Account of the United States, vol. i.
p. 535.
* Essay, p. 338. ^ Child, Discourse on Trade, p. 88.
* A Narrative of the Miseries of New England, Complete Collec-
tion of Papers relating to the Revolution, p, 30.
" History of Virginia, by a Native, part iii. p. 40 (1705).
]> o
212 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [§ XIII
house \ I shall close these hasty collections on the
subject with the authority of Dr. Dwight. "Our
laws," says that excellent writer, ^^ provide effectually
for the comfortable maintenance of all the poor, who
are inhabitants, and so long as they reside with us ; of
poor strangers, in whatsoever country they were born;
and^ when they are sick^ supply them with physicians^
nurses^ and attendants. The children of the poor are
furnished with education, and apprenticed at the pub-
lic expense. There is not a country upon earth,
where the provision for the wants and sufferings of
the poor is so effectual as New England^."
Thus it is that the poor amongst our transatlantic
brethren are cared for — the poor of all countries,
complexions, and conditions : not on the cheap wordy
plan, now so much recommended_, the ^^ be thou
warmed, be thou clothed" system ; but at an expense
which, considering all the circumstances of the coun-
try, is truly astonishing: and yet our reviews, and
magazines, and books, our political economists and
legislators, are perpetually appealing from the opera-
tion of our own national provision, to America ! It
is the most charitable construction that can possibly
be put upon such conduct, to believe that they know
nothing whatsoever on the subjects on which they
express themselves the most confidently; — " this is the
way of them.'*
(12.) But the force of this appeal may probably
be thus evaded : — the provision for the poor in Ame-
rica, it may be said, is the relic of the ignorance and
' Holmes, American Annals, vol. ii. p. 136.
^ Dwight, Travels in America, vol. iv. p. 326.
§ XIII. j AND THEIR REMEDIES. 213
prejudice they have inherited from their forefathers of
England ; and consequently the operation of the more
enlightened system must not^ after all, be sought for
there. Be it so. There is a country, and one suffi-
ciently near ; great in extent and certainly not over-
burdened with population ; vast in its means and for-
tunate in its position ; in which the experiment might
be tried with advantage; and there it has been tried:
I mean France. We have heard much of her having
been a political beacon ; she has been yet more, a mo-
ral one. When she had trampled upon the rights of
property, public and private, and revelled in the spo-
liation,— had put down her sacred institutions, and
filled the land with dismay and suffering, she seized
upon the sacred funds which the piety of preceding
ages had accumulated in behalf of suffering humanity,
and swept away the " right of the poor." A man
can have little faith in revelation, nor yet in a God,
who does not believe that the anger of Heaven
w^ould kindle at such a heinous spoliation of the de-
fenceless ; and he must shut his eyes to past events
not to see its tremendous manifestations. But not
to allude to the moral character of the transaction any
further, let us examine its policy. After having seised
their funds, the Comite de Mendicit6 recommended
no other mode of provision. The system of our re-
gular and systematic relief Avas, and Mr. Malthus says
"justly, stated by the French to be la plaie politique
de rAngleterre la plus devorante\" (England's most
devouring political sore). He repeats, elsewhere, his
admiration of their wise and proper conduct : '' the
' Multhus, Esijay on lV){)ii]ution, p. 536.
214 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [§ XIII.
Committee de Mendicity at the beginning of the French
revolution, very properly and judiciously rejected the
establishment of such a system which had been pro-
posed ^" With these proper and judicious persons
the rights of man had nothing to do with the rights
of the poor man, that is^ one too impotent either to
oppose or assist them, and consequently a mere bur-
den ; and this is a distinction seldom lost sight of in
the liberality of the liberals, either in their theories or
their practice.
It often happens, however, that men, influenced
neither by principle nor feeling, may perpetrate acts
infamous in themselves, which ultimately prove bene-
ficial. It remains to be inquired whether this sa
highly extolled one of the French has turned out to
be amongst that number. One advantage, I confess, it
has been attended with : it has given an opportunity of
putting the pernicious principles now afloat to the test,
and, as far as experience may be permitted to decide,
has disposed of them for ever. The '' sore'* of Eng-
land, if her charity must be so denominated, we know ;
has, then, the political chirurgery of France removed
from that country the deformity of poverty by their
rescissory operation ? Much is said about the pauper-
ism in London ; let us compare it with that of Paris,
the focus of the fashionables, and consequently of the
superfluous wealth, of Europe ; and then let us see to
which belongs the appellation of this " plaie la plus de-
vorante." And to end all disputes on the point, I
will take one of the most expensive and burdensome
years England has yet experienced ; since when, not-
' Malthus, Essay on Population, p. 546.
§ XIII.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 2l0
withstanding the " absorbent " system of our modern
quacks, the expenses of the poor have very con-
siderably diminished ; and if large sums did not appear
on the face of the rates, which are in reality the wages
of labour, the declension would appear still greater.
We have particulars of the year 1813 published. In
the year 1811, the metropolis contained a population
of 1,009,546 souls: that number was doubtless in-
creased in 1813, when there were 35,593 persons per-
manently relieved in and out of the several workhouses,
and 75,310 occasionally, amounting in the whole to
110,903, and involving an expense of ^6517,181. Turn
we now to Paris \ In the twelve arrondissemens, con-
taining, in 1823, a population of 713,966 souls, the
report of the Bureaux de Charite sums up as follows :
Total des indigens secourus a domicile ou aulrement - 125,500
Population des hopitaux et hospices - - 61,500
187,000
To this appalling number must still be made many
very heavy additions, such as enfans-troiwes, &c. &c.
The expense of maintaining these I hold to be far the
least important part of the examination. The twelve
Bureaux of Charity, it appears, distributed 1,200,000
francs in money ; 747,000 loaves of four pounds weight
each ; 270,000 pounds of meat ; 19,000 ells of cloth ;
7000 pairs of sabots, 1500 coverlets, &c.^ But in the
report from which I am quoting, it is added, that
these bureaux form a part only of the public benevo-
lent institutions of Paris ; then follows an account of
' Population Abstracts for 1811. Poor Rate Returns for 1813 ;
published by order, 1818; Appendix, pp. 631 , 632, 633.
' lUdletin Universel, 1824, Geo-j,, &c. torn. i. pp. 88, 89.
216 IRELAND ; ITS EVILS, [^ XIII.
the various establishments, the numbers received into
which, independently of schools, amounts to 75,200 :
most of these, I presume, are included in the 61,500, as
reported to be in the hopitaiioc and hospices. The report
of the Consul general des Hopitaux (annee 1823)
states, that the relief afforded to the indigent popula-
tion of the capital, by his administration, amounted to
3,300,000 francs, of which the foundling hospitals
absorbed a third. As to the private charities distri-
buted, the article says, " on ne pent savoir le montant.'*
But the conclusion of this important report must not
be omitted ; and I call the particular attention of those
to it who are so loud in their admiration of the proper
and judicious conduct of the French committee de men-
dicite, in rejecting the English plaie la plus devorante ;
it runs thus : —
" It is painful to terminate this enumeration of the
relief given to the indigent of the capital, by the
observation, that her streets, her quays, and all her
public places are filled with mendicants^ I"
These are distressing statements, and there is, alas !
no room to hope they are exaggerations : they receive
a melancholy confirmation by the statistics of morta-
lity. One third of the dead of Paris are buried at the
public expense ^ !
It is hardly necessary to prove, that if Paris is thus
circumstanced, the rest of a country to which its
capital is every thing, is still more deplorably imbued
with beggary. That it is not so effectually succoured, we
may very safely conclude. An intelligent contributor to
' Bulletin Universel, Geog. et Stat., torn. i. p. 89.
' Brewster's Edinburgh Encyc, Poor, p. 88.
§XIII.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 217
the ^^ Bulletin Universel des Sciences," thus expresses
himself upon this point. " Supposing that the relief
given to the poor from the public revenues were
throughout France, in the same proportion as the
population of Paris, it would amount to 121,000,000
francs." (It is plain he speaks only of the sums
awarded to the maintenance of the poor from the
public revenues ; for if he had included those adminis-
tered by the twelve Bureaux de Charit^, which are, in
addition, distributed in the different arrondissemens,
the proportion would amount to about 200,000,000
francs.) ^* But this sum is evidently much exagge-
rated ; for there exist administrations of charity only
in our towns, and the poor in our rural communes are
succoured by voluntary charitable donations only.
One ought to feel astonished that we have not been
obliged to have recourse to more efficacious means,
after a revolution which has left us in the same situa-
tion as England found herself in under the reign of
Elizabeth, when the ecclesiastical property, which was
the patrimony of the unfortunate, had been alienated
from them^" He does, indeed, show that the evil of
such a state of things is, in some degree, mitigated
by the minute division of the large properties which
were confiscated at the revolution ; but few, I think,
amongst us, are for thus curing ' la plaie' of pauperism
amongst us. The wisdom of the gentlemen Mr. Mal-
thus eulogizes so highly is therefore manifested in the
vast expense which is now entailed upon the govern-
ment, leaving the country still very inadequately
' Bulletin Universjcl, torn. iv. p. 44.
218 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [§XriI.
relieved, and swarming from one end to the other with
mendicants.
(13.) In proof that universal mendicancy is the al-
ternative of having no poor-laws, I may safely refer
to the testimony of any one who has travelled through
that country; or indeed any other in the south of
Europe, where there is no regularly organized system
of public relief for the poor. No expense, however
great — no establishments, however magnificent, seem
to compensate the want of this. I shall only quote
one or two authors, and leave the reader to contrast
the situation of such countries, in regard to poverty
and wretchedness, with those where there is a regular
system of national relief, as in Switzerland, Sweden,
Holland, and England. " Let the traveller," says one
of these, '^ start from the rock of Lisbon, and proceed
through every part of Spaing Italy, and France, and
the wretchedness and beggary which prevails in every
town, village, house, and even apartment, through all
these christian catholic countries, can only be appre-
ciated by those who have witnessed such scenes ^ In
Spain and Portugal, human misery and mendicity are.
certainly on a more extended scale than in France
and Italy; but with this difference, that in the latter
countries the profession is more matured and refined
than in the former, where they content themselves
' Cervantes says, of his Governor of Barataria, that m ridding the
streets of beggars and relieving the indigent, " he made and ap-
pointed an overseer of the poor, not to persecute, but to examine
•whether they were or were not real objects." Precisely the law of
England. May the fiction of that inimitable author become at
length, as it respects his own country, a happy reality !
* Milford, Observations during a Tour through France, &c. vol. ii.
p. 76.
§XIII.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 219
with quietly exhibiting disease, of the most horrible
description^ on the road side, in the corners of streets,
and at the gates of towns, begging the Almighty, or
some favoured saint, to inspire you with charity. Va-
gabonds, and those born and educated in beggary,
make no scruple to enter your apartments, whilst at
your dinner or supper, shut the door, and with appa-
rent humility persevere in their petition till it is
granted. In France and Italy, the beggars possess a
superior polish and perseverance ; and it may be
deemed an established maxim among them, that a
refusal is not an answer. At post-houses, and towns
where you pass through, they are as regular in their
attendance at the door as the landlord or the waiter,
and place themselves in positions to catch the eye,
turn which way you will, making a monotonous buzz,
like a distant swarm of bees. If you shut your eyes,
or the window-blinds of your carriage, you voluntarily
become a kind of state-prisoner, and of course are
deprived of seeing the place and its inhabitants. But
this will not always secure you from their importu-
nity ; for I have found it occur, that they will open
the door of the carriage, and present such a counte-
nance of real or fictitious misery, that I believe few
travellers persevere in the resolutions they have
formed under such unequal contests ; at least I know,
that whoever wishes to consult his ease or his health,
had better not enter the lists with such opponents \ —
In large cities, in coming out of one house, you are
fairly hunted till you get into another: the fraternity,
' Miltbid, Observations during a Tour through France, &c. vol. ii.
p. 80.
220 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [§XIII.
however, appear to have this point of etiquette, that
only one hunts you at a time; but, before you are out
of sight of the former beggar, whom you have re-
lieved, you are considered fair game for the rest of
the pack. These scenes of misery every day present-
ing themselves, have been the subject of my reflections
during many a solitary ramble through Europe J"
Such is an extract from the description of the paupers
of France, as w^ell as Italy and Spain, given by a very
intelligent modern traveller. But if authorities, more
universally known, are preferred, I will give the same
facts in the language of Kotzebue. It concerns a
country and a city, whose numerous and splendid
charitable establishments Eustace eulogizes so highly ;
Naples. "It is," says Kotzebue, '^crowded with beg-
gars, whose number defies all calculation. — I feel it,
indeed, a fruitless task for my pen to attempt a de-
scription of the scenes I have witnessed, and I lay it
down in despair. But no ! what I can tell, is as much
as need be known of human misery. As we step out
of our house, twenty hats and open hands are stretched
out towards us. We cannot take ten steps in the
street without meeting a beggar, who crosses our
path, and, with groans and piteous exclamations, soli-
cits our mite. Women, often dressed in black silk,
and veiled, intrude themselves impudently upon us.
Cripples, of all sorts, hold up their stump of a leg or
an arm close to our eyes. Noseless faces, devoured
by disease, grin at us. Children quite naked, nay,
even men, are to be seen, lying and moaning in the
dirt. A dropsical man sits by a wall, and shows us
' Milford, Observations, &c. vol.ii. p. 81. See the following pages.
§ XIII.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 221
his monstrous belly. Consumptive mothers lie by
the road-side, with naked children in their laps, who
are compelled to be continually crying aloud. If we
go to church, we must pass between a dozen such de-
plorable objects at the door, and when we enter, as
many fall down on their knees before us. Even in
our dwellings, we are not free from the painful spec-
tacle. If we open the balcony-door, the sighs re-
echo from below ^ :" —
But I will pursue the quotation no further. Some
may think that they would be proof against all this
importunity, under the idea that much of it is urged
under fallacious pretences. But w^ho can determine,
and consequently who, with a heart, dare refuse? This
author gives an awful proof of the distressing predi-
cament in which any man must be placed under such
circumstances, and even in his own country, were
there no provision for the poor. He saw one of these
importunate wretches die in the street while suppli-
cating— die of hunger! He attests it, and the date,
December the 4th, 1804, and adds, '' N. B. The
king rode past to-day, to the chase, with twenty or
thirty dogs, all in excellent condition^". Horses and
dogs, we are told, are granaries for the poor ^. I shall
take another opportunity of showing the error of this
notion, likewise, from fiscal data.
That a better system will ultimately prevail in the
countries last referred to, there is little doubt. The
enemies of poor-laws must prepare themselves for
their extension, instead of anticipating their extinction.
' Kotzebue, Travels through Italy, vol.i. pp. 251,252.
' Ibid. vol. ii. pp. 217,218. ^ Malthus, Essay on Pop.
222 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [§XI1I.
Mendicity^ which will inevitably prevail wherever
there is no legal relief for the poor, has more than all
the disadvantages of the latter, without any of its be-
nefits. As an intelligent traveller observes, '"^ without
some sort of eleemosynary public establishment," which
he says is wanting, generally speaking, in Italy, the
wretchedness is extreme^ and "charity becomes hope-
less*". He adds, however, that in Venice, ^^a, system
something approaching to our mode of providing for
the indigent poor, has been adopted, where a sort of
chest has been formed for their relief, out of contribu-
tions levied on the richer inhabitants, backed by
donations from the government^". He adds^ " a great
change has been, in this respect, wrought in Venice,"
as, before, ^^ it was crowded with half-starved
wretches, like other parts of Italy ^."
(14.) I cannot but remark here, that in this respect
the condition of the Irish poor is still more deplorable.
They too are beggars, they importune in still greater
multitudes ; but they have few of the splendid establish-
ments so much talked of in other countries ; and
instead of troops of foreigners arriving, and spending
amongst them the revenues obtained elsewhere, they
are almost totally deserted by their own natural pro-
tectors. In search of employment^ and of bread, they
wander in every direction ^ ; they are chased back from
the city^ ; intercepted on the high-ways ; and driven
from the villages ^ ; and with greater apologies for beg-
' Hallam, Letters from the North of Italy, vol. i. p. 130.
^Ibid. vol. i. pp. 131, 132. ' Ibid.
* Drs. Baker and Cheyne, vol. ii. p. 165.
' Ibid, vol.ii. pp. 41, 71, 85, 91, 317, 371, 373.
^Ibid. vol. ii. p. 138. ' Ibid. vol. ii. p. 142.
§ Xril.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 293
ging than any other people upon earth, they are the least
tolerated in availing themselves of this last resource
of suiFering humanity. Let not the enemies of their
species attribute this to their numbers ; these must
again be reminded that such was their fate when the
population of the country was in the most scanty
stated
Mendicancy, therefore^ has not, and never can be,
put down in Ireland, till a national system of relief be
adopted ; in the mean time, independently of the dis-
grace and suffering which the want of it occasions, it
has been asserted, on a careful calculation, that the
present plan of relieving distress is, in comparison to
the number of the inhabitants and their means, far
more burdensome than that occasioned by the poor-
laws of England '.
Let, then. Englishmen judge which best merits the
appellation of la plaie la plus cUvorantc, — their system
of sustaining the poor, or this pest of society, universal
mendicity, w^ith all its inevitable train of deceit, dis-
grace, immorality, disease, and suiFering ? We are
placed in this dilemma; without a systematic plan of
relief for the poor, the very idea of discountenancing
mendicity is infinitely too cruel to be practicable any-
where. This point at least needs no arguing; Lord
Hale has as clearly settled it in his little piece on the
poor-laws as he ever did any question in the court of
Kinc^'s Bench ^
' Archbishop Boulter, Letters, vol. i. p. 222.
* Minutes of Evidence before the Lords' Committee, 1824, p. 264 ;
A. Nimmo, Esq.
" Lord Hale ; Burn, Hist. Poor Laws, p. 150.
224 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [§XIII.
(15.) I turn from the contemplation of this state of
things, infinitely more disgraceful to the rich than to
the poor, wherever it exists, to a very different pic-
ture. I shall not instance England, though I think
I well might, after what has been seen, but appeal to
one of the most interesting countries in Europe, in
all respects, where a system of sustaining the poor
very similar to ours prevails — the kingdom of the
Netherlands. In the year 1823, an official report
was made to the States General, upon the " ^tablisse-
mens de bienfaisances et de I'education des Pays-
Bas \" We have already, in reviewing the agricul-
culture of the Netherlands, seen that there a beggar
is scarcely to be found. From this report, however,
it appears there are 2,285 mendicants ; the number is
triumphantly small. But, though there is so little
begging allowed, there is poverty ; but it is treated as
poverty ought always to be, not thrown prominently
forth on accidental charity, but quietly and regularly
retired, protected, and sustained. The population of
the kingdom is stated at 5,721,724 ; the number of
those who are at the '' charge publique," and whom
we should, perhaps, disdainfully call paupers, exclu-
sively both of the *^ atteliers de charite," whom we
should certainly class with them, and of those who
receive education at the public expense, is 682,185,
or near an eighth part of the entire population^. Hear
this, ye dissatisfied Englishmen ! Nor have they got,
as yet, the divine knack of feeding them upon words :
• See Bulletin Universel, Avril, 1825, p. 165.
' Raport fait aux Etats-Generaux, for 1822. Bulletin Uni-
versel, Geog. et Stat., torn, v., pp. 19, 165.
§XriI.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 225
they expend upon them, exclusively of education,
10,212,976 florins. In this report, the provinces are di-
vided into southern and northern ; the latter, including
old Holland, one is curious to examine, from the cir-
cumstance of the merited celebrity that country has
enjoyed for ages, in the preservation of its poor.
The population of the nine northern provinces is
stated at 2,148,339, their poor at 196,053 persons :
but the Dutch, continuing their habits of humane
attention to their poor, expended no less a sum, on
this smaller number, than 5,955,030 florins \ or about
thirty florins each ; something more, I think, than
three quarters of wheat, at the average Amsterdam
prices of that year^. I have not in my possession
any returns of the number of paupers, in that year,
in England and Wales ; but, to recur to the year
1813, already referred to, there were then 971,913,
on whom was expended 6^6,679,657, or about ten
bushels each, not half the former quantity : now,
however, the fall in grain has increased that allowance ;
but still, I fear, we fiiU far short of the Dutch in
care of, and liberality to, our poor ^.
Here, then, is the real secret of the management of
the poor of Holland ; it is not that she has an exten-
sive foreign trade, or sends forth numerous colo-
nial emigrations, or that she possesses an extremely
unhealthy country (these are the reasons of such
as conceive that the only way to cure poverty is to
expel or desert it) : no ! those who live at the public
' Rapport fait aux Etats-Generaux, for 1823, torn. v. p. 16.5-
* See Foreign Corn Returns, published JNlarch, 1826.
' Poor-rate Returns for 1813, published 1818.
226 IRELAND; ITS EVILS^ [^Xllf.
cost are, proportionably, at least as numerous as are
such in England ; but generous and unwearied atten-
tion to wretchedness and distress is her plan. Peipe-
tually accused of selfishness, where is generosity like
this to be found? — of coldness, where does the flame of
Christian charity burn with so bright and so steady a
flame, as in Holland ? Possessed of a narrow untrac-
table territory, and an unpropitious climate, loaded with
taxes and with a declining trade ; still she sets an ex-
ample to every nation upon earth ; which speaks as
loudly as human conduct can. Go and do thou likewise !
I will close these remarks on the poor-laws of
Holland^ by an anecdote which, to me, is very im-
pressive, as evincing that there is something in the
very nature of charity that strikes those hearts that
are dead to every other duty, and which inspires their
deepest reverence even where it fails to excite their
imitation. " When the Duke of Lotherdal, jeering
about the fate of Holland, then threatened by Louis,
and basely deserted by Charles the Second, said that
oranges would be scarce when the French should
have plundered Amsterdam, Charles, who knew Hol-
land well, as a resident there, interrupted his mirth,
and, for once serious, replied : ' I am of opinion
that God will preserve Amsterdam from being de-
stroyed, if it were only for the great charity they have
for their poor ^' " Difficulties environ our own country,
at present ; a storm seems gathering, and the future
prospect darkens ; let us cover our manifold ofl^ences
with this divine mantle ; let us lay hold of the weak-
ness of the Deity, if I dare so to express myself: let
' Ker, of Kersland, Remarks on Holland, part iii. p. 34.
§ Xin.j AND THEIR REMEDIES. 227
US increase our attentions to our own poor ; and j}er-
form a solemn act of justice and mercy in behalf of
those of Ireland, without delay. '^ If merits, in an
individual, are sometimes supposed to be rewarded in
this world, I do not think it too presumptuous to sup-
pose, that national virtues may likewise meet with
their blessings. England has, to its pecuHar honour,
not only made its poor free, but hath provided a certain
and solid establishment, to prevent their necessities
and indigence, when they arise from what the law
terms ^ the act of God.' And are not these benefi-
cent attentions to the miseries of our fellow-creatures
the first of those poor pleas which we are capable of
offering in behalf of our imperfections to an all-wise
and merciful Creator ^ ?"
(16.) With the sacred feelings which such a pas-
sage as this leaves upon the mind, it is painful to
return to controversy. But the cause demands it,
and the stronghold of the adversaries of the poor-
laws has still to be attacked, and one against which,
in many cases, neither right, nor reason, nor revela-
tion can make the least impression : I mean the
stronghold of selfish interest. The country has been
taught to regard the national charity not merely as a
vast national burden, but as a growing one ; threaten-
ing to " absorb " (to use the fashionable term of the
day) the entire property of the kingdom. Mr.
Malthus told us, in 1803, that more than one half of
the population was reduced to the condition of pau-
pers ^ Another celebrated authority tells us gravely,
' Barrington, Ancient Statutes, p. 481.
* Malthus, p. 536.
Q -3
228 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [§ XIII.
if I recollect right, that, in England, seven parts of
the population are sustained by the remaining eighth :
as to the expense, the latter does not so much regard
it ; but the former says, that his supposition " of a
collection from the rich of eighteen shillings in the
pound has been nearly realized V and that it had been
justly stated, that the system was an evil in compa-
rison with which '^ the national debt, with all its mag-
nitude of terror, is of little moment'^." One would
really think that such statements as these require no
notice, and that they would render any views and
opinions founded upon them utterly valueless ; but,
no ! such authorities continue to be consulted and
appealed to.
I shall only say, as it regards one of these asser-
tions, that instead of one man amongst us support-
ing seven paupers, ten or a dozen of us are con-
triving to assist one. As to Mr. Malthus's, that the
poor-rates had nearly amounted to eighteen shillings
in the pound, and that above one-half of us were pau-
pers ; at the very time he was publishing this, an exact
account of the number of the poor, and the rates
for their support, was in the act of being taken
throughout England and Wales, and his " supposi-
tions were nearly realized," thus : — The number of
the poor were 725,568 ; and as the population was, in
1801, 9,168,000, in 1803 they were certainly not
one-thirteenth of the whole, instead of " the largest
half:" then the amount collected was £5,348,205,
being, as the report says, "an actual rate on the
rack-rental of England and Wales of 2y. lOd. in
' IVIalthus, p. 399. ' Ibid. p. 536,
§XIII.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 229
the pound'; bat .5&1,270,314 of that sum were dis-
bursed in county and other rates, mih'tia allowances,
&c. ; so that the sum expended on the poor was only
2,!?. l|c?. precisely. But even this statement conveys
a very erroneous idea as to the pressure of the poor's-
rate: it should be kept in mind, that it is not the
landlord, but the cultivator that pays this rate ; and
as the produce of the land is rarely estimated at less
in value than three rents, generally four (it then
averaged far more), the poor had only 8|d in the
pound, at the most, on that produce, or considerably
less than four per cent. ; inclusive of what was con-
tributed by traders and manufacturers (which was
very little), and nothing whatsoever from the great
ship-owners, or from the fundholders of the kingdom,
as such. Including these amongst the rich, of whom
Mr. Malthus speaks as having to support the poor,
by a collection of eighteen shillings in the pound ; and
I defy him to prove that there was a collection of
eighteen farthings in the pound on their behalf, and,
excluding such altogether, of so many halfpence.
(17.) But, leaving these calculations, let us next
inquire whether, since that period, the poor's-rate has
manifested that constant tendency to increase, so as
to merit the appellation of being so devorante; tlireat-
ening to '^absorb" the whole rental and property of
the country ; for that is the argument, appealing as it
does to the fears of the selhsh, on which these iin-
pugners of our poor-laws mainly rely. In 1803, we
have seen the sums expended on the poor amounted
to £4,077,891 ; at present (1827), I imagine they
' Pooi-Rale Returns, 1803, p. 716.
230 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [§ XIII.
may amount to five millions and a half, or rather
more. In the former period^ the paupers amounted to
725^568 ; at present, I conceive, they do not reach a
million: then the rental of the kingdom was esti-
mated at 6^38,000,000*; in 1815, it was stated, on
the data furnished by the property-tax, at about
i^52,000,000 ; and, considering the vast creations of
property since that period, notwithstanding the de-
pressions and fluctuations to which it has been sub-
ject (with which the poor have had no more to do
than the Pindarees of India), can it be estimated at less
at present ? Where then is the proof, I ask, that the
poor, or the expenses of sustaining them, are increas-
ing in an undue proportion, compared with the popu-
lation and property of the country }
But supposing some of the preceding items should
be captiously objected to it, I have a set-off of that
weight and magnitude which will at once silence all
such cavils. There is included in the amount re-
turned, as expended on the relief of the poor, a vast
sum which is, to all intents and purposes, the wages
of necessary labour ; and amongst the number returned
as paupers many are active labourers, in full and con-
stant employment. At present_, I have nothing to do
with the cruelty of this conduct, or the motives by
which it is inspired ; those are sufficiently developed
elsewhere : I shall only now state the fact (and that
on the highest authority), that it is the result of a con-
spiracy, against which the poor are utterly powerless,
" absorbing" the whole of the labourers of entire pa-
rishes, and extending to many counties, especially
' Report, Poor Laws, 1804, folio.
§ XIII. J AND THEIR REMEDIES. 231
those where the poor-rates are represented as the
highest, and paupers as the most numerous. This
pernicious system has grown up principally within
the last quarter of a century, or during the period we
are examining. It is difficult to estimate the extent
to which it has been carried ; but one thing is cer-
tain, if the statistics of poverty were purified of this
shocking perversion, — pauperism has been a greatly
diminishing, rather than an increasing evil, during
this century. I mean not that those should be de-
ducted who, having large families, receive assistance :
to relieve such, notwithstanding Mr. Malthus warns
us on this head, was one of the designs of the national
charity, and has ever been attended to ; a provision
evidently for the public good, because it enables those
who demand labour to fix its remuneration, so as to
meet the average wants of those who furnish it. Hence,
wherever poor-laws have been established, as in Hol-
land^, in Switzerland'*, and in Sweden^, such has been
one of the declared legitimate objects of the institu-
tion ; as to our own, old Dalton says, interpreting them
almost immediately after their enactment, that among
those legally entitled to relief, is the "poore man
overcharged with children "*." To this it will suffice, I
think, if we add the authority of Lord Hale^ But
Mr. Malthus recommends that, even in apportioning
little spots of land for the cultivation of the poor, " too
nmch attention should not be paid to the number of
* Dr. Armstrong, Works, vol. ii. p. 215.
' Spirit of Legislation, on Switzerland, p. 43.
^ James, Tour in Sweden, p. 105.
* Dalton, Country Justice, 1619, folio, ch. xl. p. 100.
*0n the Poor. See Burns, Hist, of the Poor Laws, p. 145.
232 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [^Xlll.
children V' dependent poverty being, according to him,
disgraceful, Hear^ however, what a different autho«
rity, in all respects, says on this point : — " Let us,"
says William Pitt, " make relief, where there are a
number of children, a matter of right, and an honour,
instead of a ground of opprobrium and contempt.
This will make a large family a blessing, and not a
curse, and draw a proper line of distinction between
those who are able to provide for themselves by their
labour, and those who, after having enriched their
country with a number of children, have a claim upon
its assistance for their support'^."
(18.) But to return. Confident that this argu-
tnentum ad crumenam, however it may be kept in the
back-ground, is the main one on which the adversaries
of our national charity rely, and by which they suc-
cessfully resist the extension of it to Ireland ; so that
it is in vain you talk of justice, when you are an-
swered by ^^ so much in the pound," or of mercy,
when you are threatened with "the absorption of
rents ;" let us, in proceeding with the present inquiry,
meet such on their own ground.
As it has been already sufficiently shown that.
' Malthus, Essay, p. 589.
* Pitt, Speech on Whitbread's Bill. Eden's Hist, of the Poor, vol.
iii. Appendix, p. cccxi. See, also, the benevolent Firman on this sub-
ject; Proposals, &c. p. 14, published 1681. As so much is said
at present about the policy of deserting children, I quote the fol-
lowing passage : " Queen Elizabeth and her ministers had no con-
ception of barbarity towards infants, nor dreamt of such false par-
simony as to save other people's money, to alienate from a child the
necessary means of support. The poor's law has fully provided for
them, by virtue of one of the most plain, christianlike plans, that
ever entered into the heart of prince or subject." — (Jonas Hanway,
Importance of the Poor, vol. i. p. 1 7 1 .)
§ XIII.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 233
during the current century at least, these representa-
tions, touching the relative increase of pauperism and
the expense it occasions, are manifestly erroneous, we
shall now extend the inquiry up to the period of the
first establishment of the national charity. And in
doing this, it will be again necessary to correct the
inadvertency of those who have of late years written
so much on the subject, and, I am sorry to add, of
those who have put forth documents relative to it.
Inadvertency, I said ; I fear, however, it occasionally
merits a harsher term : for I see in it the prevalent
disposition of stating those facts, and those only,
which subserve a particular purpose, without much
regard to their nature, their connexion, or even their
correctness.
(19.) However this may be, it is much to be
regretted that successive committees of the House of
Commons have unintentionally fallen into error on this
subject. They have assumed, without, as it appears to
me, sufficient examination, the correctness of an im-
portant document, on this point, lately put forth, in
which the sum of £689,971 is given as the total amount
expended in the maintenance of the poor of England
and Wales, on the average of the three years 1748,
1749, and 1750. In proceeding to prove the utter in-
correctness of that account, I shall make a few previous
remarks. Since that period, it is well known that
numbers of returns, on the same subject, have been
made to parliament, the later ones only having any
claim to correctness : even in this century, we are
informed, in the obversations appended to the two
voluminous reports of 1803, and of 1813, 1814 and
234 IRELAND; ITS EVILS^ [§XIII.
1815, that they err materially in deficiency, espe-
cially the former one, as might be expected ; for it
is in the very nature of such statistical accounts to
become more complete as the necessary inquisitions
are more familiarized to the people, and when those
suspicions, which are always at first excited on such
occasions, are allayed. But, to return to the last
century. There were returns of the expenses for the
maintenance of the poor, for the years 1776 and
1784. Some of these the late Mr. Gilbert, well
known as having devoted the labours of his parlia-
mentary life to the subject, was mainly instrumental
in obtaining, and yet we find him pronouncing, in
his place, in parliament, and in his numerous publica-
tions on the subject, that, when he had obtained them,
they were grossly defective \ Indeed, it is a recorded
fact, that the order for their production was, at that
time, very reluctantly complied with throughout the
country. According to Mr. Gilbert, they were defi-
cient several hundred thousand pounds ; he states,
that '' the sum raised for the relief and maintenance
of the poor is not inferior, perhaps superior, to that
raised by the land tax, at four shillings in the
pound ^" In short, he estimated the poor rates of
1775 at ^^2,000,000, at the least ^ and those of 1786
at <56*2,500,000*. The errors in these documents are
now, however, wholly lost sight of, and their defects,
* Collection of Tracts concerning the Poor, 4to. 1787, p. 106.
^ Gilbert, Speech, 27th March, 1775 ; Parliamentary Register,
vol.i. p. 371.
' Gilbert, Plan for the Better Relief, &c. p. 1 .
* Some Reflections on the Poor Rates ; Collection of Pamphlets,
&c. p. 104.
§XIII.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 235
like those of legal titles, are, it appears, fully remedied
by age. If this mode will suffice, there is a yet older
official return concerning the charge of maintaining
the poor, obtained about the conclusion of the seven-
teenth century, under the direction of John Locke, at
the instance of the then government. This makes
the amount to be ^184,735 18^. 6d : why, then, is
not this sum placed at the head of those now given
in the reports of our select committees ? It would
make a far more convenient radix for calculations
concerning this " devouring sore " than even that of
1750. It is not improbable but it may, at length,
find a place there_, though there is this reason why it
would not be quite a decisive datum, even were it so
legitimatized, namely, there were only 4,415 parishes
that made any returns whatsoever on that occasion ;
the correctness of those actually received may be
judged of accordingly. The number of those in the
last large abstract (1818) is stated to be 14,640.
Supposing, then, the returns wanting at the former
period averaged the same in amount as those fur-
nished (no unfair presumption), and even allowing
those furnished to have been complete (certainly a
very liberal one), there were upwards of six hundred
thousand pounds expended on the poor at that period.
We know, however, from other quarters^ that this
was much short of the actual amount.
But these returns of 1750, found, it appears, in the
Speaker's closet, are to be now taken as correct, not-
withstanding all manner of evidence to the contrary.
Fielding, who very much interested himself about
the poor-laAvs, and who wrote on the subject the
236 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [§ XIII.
very year following, and who, consequently, could not
have been ignorant of them, nevertheless says, that
the tax for providing for the poor (independently of
every other kind of charity) equalled, frequently, in
amount, that of the land tax, then about two millions*.
Ten years before this, we are assured by Sir Matthew
Decker (an authority of great celebrity, as I perceive,
at present), that it amounted at least to <£ 1,960,000*.
Hanway, a writer incapable of falsification, and cer-
tainly not to be suspected of ignorance on this subject,
for it was the business of his benevolent life to attend to
it, estimates the rates *, a few years after this supposed
true return, at £1,500,000*, and, according to his co-
temporaries, at a low calculation ^ ; at all events, Al-
cock^ Postlethwayt% D'Angueil% and many others,
' Fielding, An Inquiry, &c. (1751), p. 32.
• Decker, Essay on Foreign Trade, p. 33. (1740.)
^ Farmer's Letters, p. 308. * Hanway, Letters on the Defects
of the Police, &c. letter xii. p. 101, 4to.
' The error of Mr. Hanway, evidently one on the side of defi-
ciency, originated thus : having obtained the probable amount of the
poor's rate, within the bills of mortality, he assumed that ten times
that sum might be taken as the total for the whole kingdom ; it is now
manifest that, in thus calculating, he used far too low a multiplica-
tor. Mr. Maitland says the poor's rate within the bills of mortality,
previously to 1739, was £90,835 4*. 5§^., exclusive of public
charities to a still greater amount. How is this sum reconcilable
with that put forth by the select committees as that levied on the
whole country ten years afterwards ? All the documents I have
seen relative to the subject, public or private, prove the latter to be
preposterously incorrect, though it is now constantly appealed to, as
the standard of our calculations in proof of the supposed relative
increase in our poor-rates.
" Alcock, Observations on the Defects, &c. This author fixes on
£3,000,000 as the sum expended on the poor ; and, singular to
remark, appeals to the parliamentary returns of 1750, in verifica-
tion of his assertion.
' Postk'thwayt, Diet. Commerce, vol. ii. p. 491. He fixes the tax
at £3,500,000.
•* D'Angueil, Avantages ct Desavantages, &c. p. 308. His esti-
mate also is £3,500,000.
§Xiri.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 237
who wrote at that period, fixed the amount at a far
higher sum. Mr. Han way's, as the lowest estimate
I have ever met with, I shall adopt.
Perfectly certain, from the strong representations,
as to the poverty and distress which prevailed at that
period, and the heavy burden which its relief occa-
sioned^ complaints of which meet one's notice in
every pubUcation at all touching upon such topics,
that the low sum set down as that of the poor's rate
of England, in 1750, amounting to only a few pence
in the pound on the then rental, could not possibly
be correct ; I attempted to ascertain this by actual
calculations^ and, for this purpose, had extracted the
sums raised, in many parts of the country, at that
period, from various topographical and historical
works ; by which I was fully convinced that nothing
could be further from the truth than that the sums
expended on our poor had, since that period, decu-
pled in amount. But I found this method of dis-
proving the correctness of the document was unne-
cessary : its utter worthlessness is not a matter of
calculation^ but a matter of history. Accidentally,
I cast my eyes upon this account of the whole affair,
in Tindal's continuation of Rapin, the very exordium
of which is quite sufficient to disprove the correctness
of the return in question. '^ Never w^as there a time,"
says the historian, speaking of the 25th of Geo. II.
(1751), " when so much money was raised for the
poor as was raised then, and yet they were never
worse provided for. This came to be a very serious
matter of inquiry, and the house had ordered an
account of the total sums of money, annually assessed
238 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [§ XUI.
in England and Wales, towards the relief of the poor,
from Easter 1747 to Easter 1750, to be returned
to their clerk, together with the number of work-
houses for the poor. The order of the house being
a little too indefinite, was X)&ry much disregarded, and
the house required the justices of the peace of the
several counties to see it now put into execution V'
The returns, in consequence of this order, a " little
too indefinite and very much disregarded," have, how-
ever, it appears, been found in the Speaker's closet,
and are now taken to be quite correct, and are passed
to the public as such, "without note or comment.'*
Worthless, then_, and thrown aside, they have become
good, like wine, by keeping ; the additional value of
which a professor of political economy (the same who
has assured us absenteeism is no evil) gravely assures
us ought to be resolved into " the value of the addi-
tional labour laid out upon it," which idea he illustrates
by a reference to time and place, which I confess I
cannot comprehend ^ It is perfectly deceptions,
therefore, to appeal, year after year, to this item.
The document is_, on the confession of those to whom
it was addressed, perfectly useless : our better re-
liance, therefore, must be on those competent autho-
rities, who lived at the very period and afterwards,
who directed their particular attention to the sub-
ject. These, doubtless aware of its existence, wholly
disregarded it, as imperfect ; depending upon their
own personal and better means of information, in
estimating this part of the national expenditure.
' Rapin, Hist, of England ; Tindal's Cont., vol. xxi. pp. 448, 449.
' M'Cullocli, Principles of Polit. Economy, vol. iii. p. 313.
§ Xni.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 23'J
But next^ as touching another and far more im-
portant document, that preserved by Davenant, and
formed, as he assures us, with great care, and at much
expense, by Arthur Moore, one of the most accurate
statistical writers of his time, and who could have no
possible inducement to impose upon his countrymen,
in this particular, had it been practicable. Some at-
tempts have been made of late, not indeed to disparage
the fidelity of that individual, but to represent the
sums he gives for each county, as calculations founded
on some other data, and as mere assumed proportions,
rather than as the results of an actual collection of
facts. This idea is singular enough, and proves to
what lengths those who labour to show " the increas-
ing burden of the poor's-rate" will go. We are ex-
pressly informed by Davenant, in the remarks which
accompany the table, that it was '^ collected vvith great
labour and expense," and is given as the " medium of
several years ;" and what fully establishes our reliance
upon these assertions is, the candour manifested about
one part of this important document: he informs us,
the sum assigned to Wales (£33,753) was not de-
rived from actual accounts, but "according to the
proportion Wales bears to the rest of the kingdom in
other taxes ^" A slight examination of the table, in
which there are twelve columns, containing sundry
fiscal accounts, will instantly show that the sums fixed
to the counties of England, severally, have no relation
to any of these. It is cjuite impossible that a fair and
candid document of this nature can err on the side of
excess ; and it is hardly less so, but that it should err
' Davenant, Ways and Means, p. 79.
240 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [§xiir.
in deficiency ; and we accordingly find the total amount
falls considerably short of computations which were
made by other intelligent persons at about the same
period. The first item in the table that I shall sub-
join to these remarks, I give on the authority of
Colquhoun : from whence he derived it, I do not re-
collect at present ; but that it is no exaggeration^ I
think will appear clear, if the reader will refer to what
Spelman says of the burden of sustaining the poor in
the early part of the reign of James I. ; and it should
be remarked, that the alienated abbey lands were then
chargeable with considerable sums in addition, appli-
cable to the purposes of charity^ which incumbrances
were afterwards redeemed.
(20.) Having, in a work of which this forms a
part^ when showing the effect of a growing popula-
tion on the happiness and prosperity of all communi-
ties, spoken at large on the state of England in former
periods, contrasting especially the condition of the
lower and the lowest ranks of society (with whom the
proof must chiefly rest) with what it is at present, I
must refer to that part in proof that the distresses
sustained by the poor_, during the period I am about
to particularise, were far more severe than they are at
present. The multitude of these, their want of em-
ployment, and extreme misery, is dwelt upon by writers
of every class — religious, moral, or political; and many
times, during the seventeenth century, was the melan-
choly fact pronounced from the throne ^, and pressed
* King James I., Works, p. 567. See also " a Collection of Kings*
Speeches," passim.
§ Xrir.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 241
upon the most serious attention of the legislature'.
But as the present argument seems to require that
some proof should be now adduced that the number
of the paupers was at least as proportionately great
then as at present, in order to prove that a system of
national charity has not, as is ignorantly alleged, a
tendency to constantly increase the numbers of its
dependents, but the reverse, I shall present a few ex-
tracts (and they shall be but few), in which numbers
actually occur, omitting such where a vast but uncer-
tain number is alone mentioned.
Gregory King, who wrote in the time of Charles II.,
and whose calculations are inserted in Davenant's
works, and adopted by him^ says, '''^the number of
people, who are a burden upon the other part, amount
to 1,330^000 souls ^" Another writer, about this pe-
riod, and who seems to have been patronized by go-
vernment, mentioning the many "hundred thousands'*
of beggars and paupers, says, " at least one hundred
' Besides Kings' Speeches, Debates in Parliament, Statutes at
Large, and other public documents, every writer on the state of
the nation, or its commerce, of any note, dwells upon the multi-
tudes and the distresses of the poor. 1 will refer the reader to a few
of them. Adam More, Bread for the Poor, 1623, pp. iii. iv. v. &c.
Cock, 1651, Summary Survey, pp. 49, 50, 67, 148, &c. Sir
Joshua Child, 1669; Essay on Trade, pp. 62, 87, 105, iScc. Yar-
renton; England's Improvement, pp. 53, 61, &c. Proposals for
building Workhouses, &c., 1677, pp. 1, 2, 3, 16, True English
Interest, 1684, Preface, p. ii.&c. Sir William Petty. Political Arith-
metic, p. 15, &c. Davenant, Works, vol. ii. p. 204. Lord Hale, On
the Poor, p. 17. Filmer, Collection of Tracts, p. 8. John Locke,
pp.244, 245. Carey, Discourse on Trade, 1700, p. 110. Paxton,
Discourse on Trade, 1704. Eden, vol. i. If the representations
of any, or all, of these are to be credited, nothing we sustain now,
in regard to the burden of the poor, can be compared with what
was then endured.
* Davenant, Works, vol. ii. p. 180.
R
242 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [§xni.
thousand of these were without employment \" Yar-
renton had before made the same estimate^. Brad-
don, in his ^^ Abstract of a Bill for employing the
Poor^" says, "there were above 1,200,000 chargeable
poor/' at that period^; of which number about one-
tenth were in the metropolis'^: the whole number in
Britain this writer makes 1,500,000^; which addition
of 300,000 for Scotland, clearly agrees with Fletcher
of Saltoun's evidence of the pauperism and mendicity
of the latter country at that period. Bellars esti-
mated the number of paupers in England, bdrig out
of work, in the year 1714, at 500,000 ^ Gee, a wri-
ter of much credit and celebrity in his day, and still
often consulted, estimates the number, out of work,
in Great Britain and Ireland, at '' above a million of
people'." As the population enlarged, and industry
became consequently more encouraged and better re-
warded, pauperism diminished ; but still, about the
year 1760, we find the chargeable poor of England
alone reckoned at 700,000®, or an eighth part of the
people, according to the author's estimate of the po-
pulation. Another writer falls somewhat short of
the preceding calculation, making the number " more
than 600,000 ^ ; and with him I shall close this hasty
collection, as it brings us up to the period when we
' R. H. Proposals for building in every County a Working Alms-
house, &c., pp. 3, 16, 4to. 1677.
* Andrew Yarrenton, England's Improvement, p. 61.
^ Braddon, Abstract, &c."p. iii. 1704.
* Ibid. p. xi. ^ Ibid. p. ix.
* BeHars, Proposals for employing the Poor.
' Gee, Trade and Navigation of Great Britain, p. 90.
» Present State of Great Britain, p. 80.
* Reflections on the Domestic Policy, &c. p. 87, 1763.
§ Xrir.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 243
begin to have something like certain data on which to
found our calculations.
Those who may be disposed to controvert these
statements^ under the idea that they are more compe-
tent to make accurate calculations, than those who
were cotemporary with the facts they record, will yet
have to dispose of the entire history of poverty during
all these periods, before they can make room for their
notions. They will have to deny every representa-
tion of the condition of the lower ranks of society,
whether made from the throne, the pulpit, or the
press ; and brand with falsehood whole generations of
their ancestors, who described the condition of that
poverty which they so deeply commiserated, and
persevered in relieving, at such immense exertions.
They never dreamt of such proposals as those which
are now publicly and unblushingly made ; they never
doubted but that increasing numbers were still a
national blessing, and time has demonstrated, in their
instance, as well as in all others, that benevolence is
wisdom. Their care was, on the contrary, to vary the
means of relieving the poor, and multiply their endea-
vours in their behalf; " I think it plain/* as one of
them exclaims, " that the poor ought neither to be
starved, nor hanged_, nor sent AVi'AV !" What a poor
political economist was Sir William Petty !
The following table will exhibit, at one view, some
of the facts previously stated. The column of the
poor's rate is, in the earlier part of it, given on the
authority of the writers previously mentioned^ and
others referred to ; with the exception of the fifth sum,
which, as before stated, is tbe result of precise and actual
R 2
244 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [§X11I.
information. The report delivered to Mr. Locke is
omitted on account of its gross deficiency ; so is that
lately published as the returns of 1748, 1749, and
1750, and for the same reason. The reports of the
years 1776 and 1783 are amended on the authority
of Mr. Gilbert, who moved for them, and who, on
due examination, so corrected them. The succeeding
sums are given as published by authority, though the
earlier of these are still confessedly deficient. Con-
nected with these sums, I have, in the next column,
given the revenue of the corresponding years, or, in
the earlier part of the table, where that was not prac-
ticable, of nearly the same period. But as revenue
may not be thought a fair comparison on many ac-
counts, I have added a column for the exports at the
different dates ; and likewise one for the national debt,
as it has been pronounced so light in comparison
with the nuisance of our poor-rates. Lastly, I have
collected the accounts of the numbers of the poor at
the different periods, accompanied by a statement of
the population at such times, which completes the
comparison I wish to institute. Another column or
two, however, might well have been added, retorting
on the antagonists of the poor-laws their favourite
argument. Had the progress of the county and other
public disbursements been given (not to mention
more distressing national statistics), their '' geometric
ratio" of increase would have been indeed exhibited!
In refraining to do so, I shall only remark, that to
single out poverty whereon to ground these ominous
calculations, manifests either an obliquity of intellect
or principle truly astonishing.
§ XIII.]
AND THEIR REMEDIES.
245
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2!46 IRELAND ; ITS EVILS, [§ XIII.
The preceding facts require little comment. They
show^ in respect of the hurden of sustaining the poor,
that of all the national items, whether of income or
expenditure, this is so far from having increased in
a super-proportion, that it is the only one that has
greatly lagged behind. Compared with the public
revenue, one hundred and fifty years ago, the poor-
rate nearly amounted to one-half; whereas at the pre-
sent period it amounts to little more than one-tenth.
As to the interest of the national debt (which is said
to be so slight an evil, compared with this), — whereas,
at the former period, the expense of the poor was con-
siderably more than twenty times that of the interest of
the public incumbrance, at present the latter is more
than five times as much as the former. But if these
should be rejected as unfair criteria (though I know
not why they should be so deemed), let us take the
exports of the country during the same period. One
hundred and forty years ago, these w^ere only four
times as much in amount as the then charge for main-
taining the poor ; at present the latter is little more
than a twelfth of the former. Then, respecting the
number of the paupers at each period, compared with
the existing population, a decisive proof of the same
gratifying fact presents itself. About the revolution,
they amounted to one-fourth of the people; at present
their relative number is diminished to one-twelfth.
As to any great inaccuracy in regard to not including
in the latter number the families of the relieved, a
matter much dwelt upon by those who wish to repre-
sent England as a nation of paupers ; we are enabled
to correct the general method of multiplying the
§ XIII.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 247
number into families, in order to obtain the real pro-
portion. In 1803_, the children of the relieved, as
well as the children relieved, were added to the num-
ber, which swells the total of that year to 1,039,716 ;
a very different addition to what such make ; instead
of five times the number, not forming near a third of
it, including orphans, and the still more unhappy and
numerous class, illegitimates. A useful little work,
entitled ^^ Statistical Illustrations," thus calculating
by families, says, that forty-two out of every hundred
were, in 1815, receiving parochial relief! The very
sum the poor cost that year utterly disproves this, —
less than three farthings a day each, on such a calcu-
lation, not as the minimum but as the average of the
relief afforded ! Parochial officers, what say ye to
this ? But it should be observed, that, of the poor
relieved in the workhouse, ail the children are num-
bered ; and frequently, on my own knowledge, those
of the out-pensioners likewise ; the illegitimate children
constantly. A reference to the work of Sir F. M. Eden
will prove this ; and will have the further good effect
of showing how few of these pensioners could by any
possibility be deducted, consisting, as the great majo-
rity does, of the aged poor, and of widows and orphans.
But a mistake, of a nature quite contrary to the one
under examination, is always made in estimating the
real number of paupers amongst us ; and one, as I
believe, hitherto entirely overlooked. Not only are
those, regularly relieved, returned, but all those who
have occasional assistance during the year are entered ;
and if they apply more than once, probably they are not
unfrcquently entered as often as they apply. What-
ever may be the general practice as to the latter fact,
248 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [§ XIII,
certainly very many of the casually relieved poor, who
amount, it will be seen on reference to the reports, to
nearly half the entire number, if they receive ever so
few donations, or not more than one, and do not remain
on the books for any considerable length of time ; still,
at the end of the year, though long off the list, they
are returned. Military courtesy, once a captain and
always a captain, is extended even to pauperism. Per-
haps I shall be better understood by adducing an
example. If we take up an infirmary report^ and
should judge of the actual inmates by the number of
annual admissions, ar. exceedingly erroneous idea
would be entertained. The same mistake applies,
though not to an equal extent, in judging of the num-
bers of the poor from annual reports. The annual
amount must necessarily much exceed the co-exist-
ing number. Of one thing I feel fully confident ;
that the excess above the actual number of the
relieved poor, at any one time, thus occasioned, will far
more than compensate for the omission of the children
of that particular class of paupers who have families.
These remarks will not be deemed superfluous by
those who wish to redeem the country from the cha-
racter of pauperism, which some seem so anxious to
fix upon it.
But to return to what the adversaries of our na-
tional chanty mainly dwell upon, — the expense. Again
adverting to the preceding table, made up on authori-
ties which are given throughout, 1 think it may be
asserted that the very reverse of what is alleged, in
regard to the supposed super-proportionate increase
of our poor-rates, is demonstrated. But even with
these facts before my eyes, in contradicting the whole
§ XIII.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 249
stream of our present speakers and writers on the
subject^ including some who seem friendly to our na-
tional provision^ I feel some hesitation ; I will there-
fore turn to an authority whom I am persuaded none
will underrate, one whose labours on this important
subject future generations will duly appreciate, and
one, above all, whom Mr. Malthus eulogizes because
of his supposed hostility to the general system, I mean
Sir Frederick Morton Eden. After recording the in-
crease of the poor-rates, from early periods to the close
of the last century, he presents us with his deliberate
judgment on the whole, in these memorable words : —
" Great and burdensome as the poor's rate may
appear, from the returns which were made to parlia-
ment in the year 1786, and from the more recent
communications which the reader will find detailed in
the second volume, the rise of the poor's rates
HAS NOT KEPT PACE WITH OTHER BRANCHES OF NA-
TIONAL EXPENDITURE, OR EVEN WITH OUR INCREASED
ABILITY TO PAY THEm\"
And if we have occasion to be grateful in review-
ing our present condition, in reference to the past,
as it respects this necessary burden ; we have no less
reason to be abundantly satisfied, in comparing the
' Sir F. M. Eden, State of the Poor, vol. i. p. 407. The same
cheering view of the subject is taken by an able writer, in the
Quarterly Review, vol. xxxiii. p. 454, from whose views, on parti-
cular parts of the question, the author reluctlantly differs. His
words are these; "The whole of the funds now actually expended on
the poor (even if we include in tliis large amount the very large
proportion which is now paid to able-bodied labourers, and which
to all intents and purposes constitutes a part of the wages of
labour) bears a much smaller proportion to the present resources
of the country, than the total amount of the contributions raised for
the sustenance of the poor bore to the whole of its wealth in the
time of Elizabeth."
250 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [^XIII.
weight it imposes on us with that home by the sur-
rounding nations, when estimating both on any just
principle. I shall give this conclusion likewise in the
better words of a judicious and candid modern writer
upon the subject. " I am persuaded," says he, ^^ that
it will be found a certain truth, that the charities of
other countries have never, at any period, been so
conducted, as to relieve the poor, of an equal popula-
tion, so adequately as the poor s law, with less encou-
ragement of idleness, or with better stimulus to
industry ^"
(22.) Were we to extend the comparison of our
present system of national charity with that of which
it is plainly the substitute, the relief afforded by
means of religious endowments, we shall find our pre-
ference still more fully confirmed. It was one of
the main objects of the founders of all such to pro-
vide a perpetual system of relief for the poor ; and
the fulfilment of that intention was guaranteed, in all
cases, as far as their original institution went**
Hence, from the earliest period of the introduction
of Christianity amongst us, and especially since the
days of our immortal Alfred, property of that nature
kept perpetually accumulating, till we find, at one
period, it "absorbed" one-third of the entire king-
dom^. That this was a pernicious, as well as an
expensive system of relieving poverty, we are well
aware; it was one, however, nationally recognized
and established, those foundations being, as Camden
says, for the relief and maintenance of the poor and
' Collections relative to systematic Relief, &c. p. 177.
* Bede, Ecclesiastical History, 1. i. chap, xxvii.
' Cotton, Abridgment of the Records in the Tower, p. 189.
<^Xni.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 251
impotent ^ That they did so relieve them^ I refer ta
the testimony of Spelman^; and that they could not
legally refuse so to do, to the authority of Coke^.
That point of law had been solemnly argued and de-
termined \ These, however, Henry VIII. seized,
and confiscated ; promising, as far as the poor were
concerned, to establish a better system upon their
ruins, saying to his obsequious parliament, " If I
should suffer the poor and miserable to be unrelieved, you
might well say, that I being put in so special a trust,
as I am in this case, were no trusty friend to you,
nor charitable to my enne christen." He fulfilled
this trust by seizing all their permanent funds (many
of which are in the possession of those who now
inveigh against all national charity), and put the poor
upon the (illegal) Scotch plan, i, e. upon public beg-
gings upon Sundays and holidays^. How well it
answered, the universal distress — the whippings and
cauterizings that ensued — and, above all, the exe-
cution of above 70,000 poor wretches, in his reign,
principally for thieving, sufficiently attest. Some
imagine that, when these were disposed of, poverty
ought to have become defunct ; and, consequently,
that so many years afterwards there could have been
no need of a national provision. On some such idea
argue, it seems, the framers of the late Emigration
Report"; such, however, attend but little to the struc-
• Camden, Britannia, p. 163; (1637.)
^ Spelman, De non Temerandis Ecclesiis, p. 40.
^ Emigration Report, 3d part, p. 40.
^ Spelman, De non Temerandis Ecclesiis, p. 10. Caudris Case,
Coke, 5th Report, folio 11 ; See Coke, 2 Institutes, p. 649, 1642.
Sec Burn, Hist, of Poor Laws, p. 6. Stat, at Large, 2 H. 5, chap. i.
^ 27 Henry Vlll. " Emigration Report, part iii. p. 40.
262 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [§ XIII.
ture of society. Lord Hale is a better authority : as
a philosopher, he knew that, *' as the populousness of
the kingdom increaseth, the poor will be proportion-
ably increased';" and, as a judge, he saw that unre-
h'eved poverty filled the gaols with malefactors, and
fed the gallows and the gibbet*. I may digress so far
as further to state of this great man_, that his endea-
vours were to amend the poor-laws, which he deemed
founded on piety, humanity, and sound policy^; not
to destroy them : whatever were the defects of the
system, even as then administered, still it was his
maxim_, "better relieve twenty drones, than let one
bee perish'*." But to return: after sundry eibortive
attempts to relieve poverty from the unparalleled
distress into which this act of spoliation had involved
it, the celebrated poor-law of England was passed at
the termination of the reign of Elizabeth ; it was
planned by some of the greatest statesmen the coun-
try ever possessed, and was drawn up by one to whom
it does greater honour than all his other labours,
moral or philosophical, which send him down to pos-
terity without a rival; I mean Bacon. It is touch-
ing to hear this great man, in his disgrace and sorrow,
thus appealing to his Maker, ^* O God, the state and
bread of the poor have been precious in my eyes ! "
(23.) And that the framers of this law were not mis-
taken as to the effects which they contemplated would
result from it, succeeding times have fully testified.
We have a better right to assert that the labouring
, ' Lord Kale, On the Poor. Burns, Hist. Poor Laws, p. 153.
. 5 Ibid. p. 160. ' Ibid. p. 135, 159, 160.
> Quarterly Rev. vol. xix. p. 79.
§XIII.] AND THEIR REMEDIES, 253
classes of England have been improved in character,
conduct, and condition, by its operation, than its ini-
pugners have to assert the contrary : their superiority
in those respects is manifest. We are authorised
also in attributing no inconsiderable share of the
prosperity which has since that period distinguished
this nation from all others, to this great and con-
stantly operating cause. But these, though great,
are incidental advantages, such, indeed, which ever
accompany and reward acts of justice and mercy.
Its direct and intended consequences, in regard to the
mass of evil it removed, and the good it conferred,
are more essential to our present inquiry : happy
would it have been for Ireland, if, at that early period,
the same great remedy had been applied ! These
effects, which have continued to the present hour,
were instantly obvious, and shall be described in the
language of one fully competent to judge, and who
lived at precisely the period that enabled him to do
so. We read thus in Dalton's Justice, one of our
text books : '' The benefits of this law" (including
another for the suppressing of vagabonds, which, in
effect, was a part of the system) ''^are, 1. Idleness
is very much repressed^ 2. Infinite swarms of idle
vagabonds are rooted out, which before wandered up
and down, to the great danger and indignity of our
nation. 3. We ourselves are now compelled but to
relieve the poore of our own parishes (whose condi-
tion and estate we know), and to a certainty of gift,
wherewith we are now taxed by our neighbours;
whereas before, we gave we knew not what, nor to
whom ; and manv times to such as were readv to
254 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [§XIII.
have cut our throats, if opportunity had served
them*/' Such is the testimony of an eye-witness as
to the immediate effect of the estabUshment of the
poor-laws, and that witness Dalton. And on what
principle of sophistry can its import be evaded, see-
ing that it strictly comports with the reason of the
case, and is fully confirmed by the present condition
of every surrounding country, which is still without
a national provision for the poor ?
(24.) But the abrogation of the constitutional right
of poverty, now established and enjoyed for so many
generations, would not only remit us to the state
from which the country was then happily liberated,
but would repeat the wanton cruelty of the last
Henry, and under circumstances which would greatly
aggravate it. One thing is lost sight of entirely in
discussing this subject, namely, that the establish-
ment by law of a perpetual and sufficient fund of
relief amongst us, for the maintenance of the poor,
has effectually prevented the creation of one by the
munificence of private individuals, which would, ere
this, have more than repaired the wrongs thus perpe-
trated, and, indeed, would again have carried provi-
sion to a pernicious excess. Certain is it, that, during
the long intervening time, had there been no regular
relief for the distressed poor, few with the feelings
of men or of Christians, whose lives had been pros-
perous and happy, could have lived or died without
making some returns, in the form of charity, as a
thank-offering to the Deity. Even with the know-
ledge that such provision has been made, and that so
'■ Dalton, Country Justice, ch. xlvii. ; published 1618.
§Xrir.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 2-^J
to leave or give property at present is little more than
bequeathing it to the parish, still this natural feeling
has often got the better of reason itself; and very
much property has actually been thus left, and infi-
nitely more would have been, had not the law inter-
fered, rendering all bequests void, if left witliin a
year and a day of the testator's death, consequently, in
many cases, rendering such bequests nugatory, as last
wills are often made within that period of dissolution.
(25.) Had it not been for this regular provision and
this obstacle to re-creating one, an ample fund would
have been speedily realized for the relief of the poor ;
in proof of this important assumption, I appeal to the
conduct of the rich of a neighbouring nation, not, I
hope, more distinguished for their charity than Eng-
lishmen. As the men of the revolution so " properly
and judiciously'* rejected the plague of England, a
national provision^ what is the conduct of that people ?
Notwithstanding the impediments the law imposes
there, as well as here, in the way of charitable bequests ;
and independently of the donations, not exceeding
one hundred crowns, which it does not recognise; and
without including those secret donations which elude
the law, and the many legacies which have not been
valued, which altogether amount to very large sums ;
in the five years terminating with 1823, Avith which
year the report I have before me concludes, — there were
appropriated to the use of the poor in that country.
In money .... 10,242,568
In "rentes" . . . . 188,157
In real property . . . . 2,478,041
1 2,908,766 fr.
256 IRELAND; ITS EVILS^ RxiII.
This sum, independently of the omissions previously
alluded to, and the immense ecclesiastical donations
during the same period, hut imperfectly shows what
Englishmen would have done for generations past,
had there heen no regular provision for their poor
and destitute countrymen. To deprive the poor,
therefore, of their long-acknowledged rights, founded
upon justice, mercy, and the law of the land, would
not be merely a positive spoliation, of the darkest
character, hut a negative robbery, to at least an equal
extent. All the real property of the country has been
transmitted and received on this condition ; the viola-
tion of which would be (to show the offence in an in-
dividual case, and not by rhetorical illustration) as
though an elder son, to whom a confiding father had
committed an imbecile and impotent brother, should,
after having intercepted the bounty of every other
branch of the family, under colour of providing for him
himself, at length throw his parent's will into the fire,
to free himself from the incumbrance, and then turn
the sufferer adrift as a nuisance in his house and a
disgrace to the family.
(26.) In the preceding remarks on the poor-laws
of England, tedious as I fear they may be deemed,
I have omitted many facts and arguments which have
a strong bearing upon the subject ; I am in no fear as
to their abrogation in this country, but I have been thus
diffuse in order to answer by a prolepsis some of the
objections which may be advanced against their exten-
sion to Ireland. Here, whatever may be individually felt
or asserted to the contrary, they constitute nationally
5 XIII. J AND THEIR REMEDIES. 257
speaking, to all intents and purposes, a voluntary
charity ; and as such will, I am persuaded, never cease
to be cherished by us. England may be burdened by
them, but it is a burden of which she is justly proud,
and which has given stability to her footsteps in her
march to national prosperity : however that may be,
she would just as soon rid herself of the incumbrance
of destitute infancy and decrepit age, as .^neas would
have deserted to their fate the helpless beings with
which he came loaded, and impeded in his retreat from
the burning ruins of Troy. On the other hand, " as
the care of the poor ought to be the principal object
of all laws ^," so it will become, ere long, the favourite
work of the legislature to render our present system
more efficient, to its great end, than it is at present j
and to adapt it more completely to the altered circum-
stances of the times. Petty recommended, even in a
period of very general distress, that the charge of sus.
taining the poor should be "augmented*;" but, I am
persuaded, the true course of ameliorating their con-
dition would, in regard of mere expenditure, have a
directly contrary effect. The best way of assisting
the poor, at least that part of them capable of exer-
tion, is the enabling them to assist themselves ; and,
ill order that we may know how to do this, we
ought to place ourselves in the situation in which they
are ; feel their peculiar wants and wishes, and observe
the difficulties by which they are surrounded. Much,
very much, I am persuaded, might be done in their
behalf, which would indeed, in the first instance, con-
" Paley, Moral Phil., book iii. ch. 4, p. 151.
' Petty, Of Taxes and Contributions, p. 13.
S
258 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [§ XIH.
(luce to their welfare, and that, doubtless, ought to be
the great object ; but which would as inevitably re-
dound to that of the public ; and by means which ^
while drawing a broad line of distinction between the
deserving and profligate poor, not for the purpose of
actually starving these^ but of more effectually assist-
ing and distinguishing those, would change the whole
face of pauperism, and convert the great charity of
the country into a mighty and unfailing instrument of
its moral elevation. I now allude to means which
would occasion no expense to any single individual,
or to the community at large ; means not of a
whimsical, but of a strictly practicable nature, — not
founded on some new discovery, but which have been
long pointed out by the most patriotic men the
country has ever produced ; and, in fine, which, having
been tried in many instances without failure in any,
only await the sanction of the legislature to render
them general ; while their practicability has been
already fully demonstrated in another cause and
country. To these topics 1 shall not allude at present,
however tempted to discuss them, though the subject
has been one of long and pleasing consideration.
They are put into a form to be submitted to the
public on some future occasion ; and nothing but the
consciousness that I have already trespassed too far
upon the patience of the reader prevents me going
into them at present. I shall, therefore, content my-
self with saying, that the poor-law which I propose
for Ireland, is on the same principle as that which
has been so long and so beneficially established amongst
us^ and rests upon the foundation of compulsory pro-
§ XIII.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 259
vision and discretionary relief ; but relief, in all practi-
cable cases_, connected with labour of a kind not to
interfere with the regular demand existing for it. In
a word^ assisting poverty to emerge from its condition,
rather than making it dependent upon it ; and afford-
ing at once the inducements for such an effort, and
the means of rendering it successful. But into these
particulars, I repeat, I must not now allow myself to
proceed.
(27.) The principal proposition, then, which I make
in favour of Ireland, is the immediate establishment of
a national provision for the poor, and the outcry which
is raised against this by political economists, is a suf-
ficient apology for the length into which I have gone
in defence of the measure, and in showing its results.
And if any of the arguments advanced in favour of
the principle generally, have the least weight, or have
made any impression ; when applied to Ireland in par-
ticular, they acquire tenfold force. Are the wrongs per-
petrated by absenteeship in clearing farms, dispossess-
ing tenants, in disturbing and impoverishing the coun-
try, undeniably great ? A poor's law is the specific for
those evils ; it would interpose a barrier to those clear-
ances— calm those disturbances ; in a word, it would
operate as an effectual check to the cupidity and
cruelty of a system which has long proved itself
insensible to all but mercenary motives. Is the want
of employment another of the peculiar grievances of
that country ? A poor's law, under proper regulation,
would go far to remedy that evil \ Is the remuneration
- Dulton, Country -Uislice, ch. xx.
8 i
260 IRELAND ; ITS EVILS^ [§ XIII.
of labour there inadequate to a decent, comfortable
state of h'ving? A poor's law would undoubtedly raise
and sustain the value of labour. On this last point, in-
deed, directly the contrary has been asserted, in a spirit
of hostility to the poor-laws, and in defiance of both
reason and experience \ But Lord Hale has proved
what is here maintained, in his treatise on the subject,
the arguments of which crueltyand sophistry will never
be able to answer^ and which justice and mercy will
never attempt to do. Nay, so clear is this pointy that
Lord Kaimes, in writing against the system, confesses
that its tendency is to increase the remuneration of
labour ; one of the most essential and universal bene-
fits which could be bestowed upon Ireland.
It may be necessary to particularize an objection or
two urged against this measure, as peculiar to Ireland.
The grand one, I presume, is, that it would attempt an
impossibility ; to which I will simply reply, by ob-
serving, that the fallacy of this objection has been
practically demonstrated in this and many other coun-
tries, by the experience of centuries ; and that it is
theoretically false, I trust I shall fully prove by actual
calculations, touching the principle of human increase,
in a work to which I have often ventured to allude.
The strange idea of Mr. Malthus, that we should have
had four million millions of labourers ^, if our funds
for the poor had been properly managed, will there, I
trust, be fully confuted. That the poor-laws have a ten-
dency to increase population ', I deny ; without, how-
ever, admitting that such an increase would be an evil,
* JMalthus, Essay, p. 410.
•-' Ibid. p. 419. 'Ihid.p. 413.
§ XIII.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 261
which I equally controvert. It is singular enough
that one of the leading impugners of those laws^ Lord
Kaimes (who^ nevertheless, suggested in their stead
a far more burdensome and impracticable system)?
should have urged a directly contrary objection to
them, arguing that they have a positive tendency to
" depopulate the country." Without entering into
either argument, it may suffice to say, that, as far as
experience goes, he was right : nothing can be more
at war with fact than to assert the contrary. Ireland,
without poor-laws, notwithstanding her constant emi-
grations to England and elsewhere, has increased in
inhabitants more rapidly than England, which enjoys
such laws ; and Scotland, which, in proportion to its
population, certainly sends forth a far greater number,
had, during the ten years between 1811 and 1821,
increased fourteen and a half per centum ; while Eng-
land and Wales, which have received these immense
accessions from both countries, forming so consider-
able a portion of the inhabitants of all the crowded
districts, had increased only sixteen and one-third, or
one and four- fifths more, in ten years. But to return to
Ireland, with which we have at present to do ; the po-
pulation of that island has augmented more rapidly than
England, notwithstanding all these numerous and in-
cessant deportations, and in consequenceof a principle
already developed. This argument, then, totally fails.
(28.) But the next objection to the poor-laws in
Ireland, is the most powerful one, as rooted in self-
interest. Mr. Malthus informs the Emigration Com-
mittee, by whom he is appealed to on the question,
that " the rates would very soon absorb the rentals of
262 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, ['^XIII.
all the estates V thus rousing in hostility to the measure
the ready fears and interested feelings of those to whom
the assertion is addressed. Prophecies are usually
little attended to, excepting when directed against
poverty and the poor-laws : then they are deemed
inspiration itself; even though they proceed from
oracles whose claims to prescience have as yet been but
very poorly vindicated. To say nothing of many strange
notions which have, I understand, been quietly with-
drawn, it was foretold, on the same authority, a quarter
of a century ago, that the price of labour had been
" continually rising — not to fall again ; that the rents
of land had been every where advancing — not to fall
again ; that the price of produce would rise — not to
fall again ;" that the return of such scarcities as had
been recently experienced (those of 1800 and 1801)
were to be expected as " unavoidable :" with some
strange speculations about the future value of '^ patents
for food," and other matters, concluding with this
ominous apostrophe, in allusion to such complaints —
" how will they be aggravated twenty years hence ^!"
That interval has elapsed, and has answered the
question : at its termination, we know that the dis-
tresses of the country arose from diametrically oppo-
site causes ; from depreciation of prices, and, as Lord
Liverpool stated, from over-production of provisions.
In that interval, indeed, many fluctuations have oc-
curred, none of which have been caused by the prin-
ciple of population : at one time the demand for labour
has been distressingly excessive ; at another as much
' Emigration Report, part iii. p. 31, § 3227.
^ Malthus, Essay, pp. 444, 445.
§XIII.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 263
too low *, on the whole^ however, it is acknowledged,
by the authority mentioned, to have been great. But
during all this time, the bounties of Providence have
flowed upon us in an equal and unfailing stream,
which has still enlarged with our enlarging numbers.
Still, however, the contrary principle has been main-
tained. Like the maledictory prophet of old_, it may
have varied its positions, but it has persevered in its
purpose. Secure and at a distance, it has fixed its
malignant gaze upon the tribes of human beings spread-
ing beneath, and '* covering the face of the earth,"
and has resumed from time to time its prophecies
against the increasing mulitudes. *^ But God hath
blessed them, and they shall be blessed 1"
But, to return to the objection to a poor's law,
on the score of its absorbing the entire rental of
Ireland : limit, if you please, to a maximum the
amount of relief that one parish shall raise ; and
empower such parish, in case of unrelieved distress
still prevailing, to apply for assistance to that parish
of the barony or county which is the least burdened,
agreeably to the letter of our original law, and this
objection also is obviated.
As to the term " absorbing" rents, now so hack-
nied, what, I would ask, is it that Ireland wants, but
that some part of its rental should be absorbed ? It is
the very relief that is suitable to, and demanded for,
her particular case. Of all the money circulated in
a country, that dispensed by the poor is the most
beneficial, because it passes inmiediately into the
hands of active reproductive industry, and is distri-
buted ])y the most rapid of all the channels of circula-
264 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [§ XIII.
tion throughout the whole country. Absorb part of
the rental ! Why so it would^ and as beneficially as
a famishing man would absorb a meal of food. A
poor's law, indeed, would, in this respect, be doubly
beneficial ; it would be a support to the industrious,
as well as a relief to the distressed part of the com-
munity. This sacred charity would descend upon
that bruised and afflicted country like an angel of
mercy^ with healing in its wings ; it would " come
down like rain on the mown grass ;" as showers that
water the earth, gasping under the meridian sun,
clothing it again with all the bloom and verdure of
which it had been divested. Ireland would then,
indeed, " absorb" what would restore her to health
and peace ; and the youngest sister of the Union
would become one of the fairest and most beloved
of all the branches of the British family.
(29.) Other arguments and objections, exclusively
referrible to Ireland, I had meant to have noticed ; but
I shall waive them in favour of an extract or two from
a little work in my possession, on this very subject,
written by a dignitary of the church of Ireland, Dr.
Woodward;, late bishop of Cloyne. It perhaps had
been better for the cause, if, instead of the preceding
remarks, the whole of the pamphlet had been reprinted.
It was published about sixty years ago ; and I must
again beg the reader to attend to the date, for the
purpose of once more showing him the absurdity of
attributing the distresses of Ireland to her present
overflowing population. There was then but little
beyond a third of the present inhabitants, as will be
seen by a reference to the table, and yet the condition
§ XIII. J AND THEIR REMEDIES. 265
of that scanty number will sufficiently appear. It
must be remarked, that the object of the publication
was the recommendation of a poor-law for Ireland,
as the title sufficiently explains, " An Argument in
support of the Right of the Poor in the Kingdom of
Ireland to a National Provision \" And let it not be
supposed that the proposition had not then to contend
with the same opposition that it meets with at present :
"the enormous expense V the exorbitance of the
poor-rates % &C.5 were then made precisely the same
objection as that which, under the fashionable term
" absorption, '* now universally obtains, and which,
by the bye, furthermore corroborates the previous
argument, that the poor's rate of England will not
be found, on due examination, to have imposed an
increasing burden upon us.
I shall first quote Dr. Woodward's opening sen-
tence. " That the lower class of our people are very
ill accommodated with lodging, raiment, and even
food, is but too manifest to all who are acquainted
with their manner of living. That their poverty is
like to continue with but little mitigation, will be
evident to any intelligent man, who reflects on the
following, amongst other, causes of it: the exorbi-
tant rent extorted from the poorer tenants, ever loth
and afraid to leave the ancient habitations, by the
general method of letting farms to the highest bidder,
without any allowance to a tenant right : the system
* By Richard Woodward, LL.D., (Dean of Clogher, afterwards
Bishop of Cloyne) ; Dublin, third edition, 1785 : written 1768.
' Dr. Woodward, Argument, &c. p. 43. ^ Ibid. p. 44.
266 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [§XriI.
of letting large tracts of lands to undcr-takers, inured
to tyranny and extortion, as prejudicial to the land-
lord as to the under-tenant : the oppression of duty-
work^ which calls the cottager arbitrarily from the
tillage of the little spot which he holds at so dear a
rent ; and the low rate of wages for labour. These
circumstances_, combined with some others, reduce the
Irish cottager below the peasant of almost every
country of Europe. Such is his hard condition, in
the most plentiful season, and in the prime of his
health and strength ; what then must be his state in
time of dearth, under the pressure of years, infirmi-
ties, or even a very numerous family ? His expenses
admit of no retrenchment. He is a stranger to
luxury, or even to decent accommodation^ and yet his
wages seldom aiford any reserve. On the death of
such a father of a family, dependent on his labours
for their main, or perhaps entire support, how forlorn
must be the situation of his widow or orphan
children ! It would shock a tender mind to imagine
(if imagination could paint) the miseries to which
the bulk of the inhabitants of this kingdom are con-
stantly exposed by the slightest reverse of fortune 5
by a single bad season ; by an accidental loss ; by an
occasional disease, or worn by the gradual decay of
nature. Nor are these affecting scenes confined to
seasons of scarcity ; they must always exist in a great,
though not equal, number. They present themselves
but too often to every country gentleman, and still
more to the clergy, in the exercise of their parochial
duties (to whose experience we appeal), to need a
§XIII.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 267
proof. They cannot be doubted or denied by any,
but those who shut their eyes, or steel their hearts
against them.
" So numerous, so urgent, and so well known are
the distresses of the poor : let us now fairly estimate
the sufficiency of the resources at present subsisting
for their relief. Our eyes will be naturally turned,
first, to the land-gentlemen, who derive their wealth
and importance from the labour of these men. Of
these, many, perhaps a majority, of the most con-
siderable constantly reside in another Jdngdom ; and
though some of them may cast back a part of their
superfluity on those to whose industry they owe their
ALL, yet it is to be feared that such instances are
comparatively very rare. On the contrary, it is too
frequently urged, as a recommendation of Irish pro-
perty, that it is not encumbered with any tax for the
maintenance of the poor. A singular instance this
of the inadvertence (one would hope only of the in-
advertence, lest we should be forced to impute it to
the depravity) of mankind, that such a phrase could
be rendered so familiar to the ear of any wise or good
man, as to lose its genuine horror I If the sentiment
were developed, surely few would entertain it, and
still fewer avow it : no ingenuous reader will, there-
fore, think it invidious or unnecessary, in this interest-
ing argument, to lay open its plain import, which is
this : ^ an estate in this kingdom is represented to be
peculiarly advantageous to the landlord, because,
though he may, and generally does, avail himself of
the utmost profit that can be drawn from the labour
of his tenant (leaving him too scanty a presetit main-
268 IRELAND; ITS KVILS^ [§XIII.
tenance)^ he is nevertheless at liberty to abandon that
labourer to perish, when he is unable to work any
longer/ Is this boasted privilege either honourable
or desirable ? A wise man would not glory in such
an exemption, a good man would not claim it, and
he who wishes to enjoy does not deserve it \"
In combating the idea that the voluntary charity
of the rich may sufficiently supply the exigencies of
the poor, he says, '' It cannot be denied, but that by
far the greater part of our lands do not enjoy the
benefit of the proprietor s residence, and in general
the poor of these estates partake not of his charity.
Now, when we have weighed, on one side, the extraor-
dinary indigence of the whole peasantry, and allowed,
on the other, for the number of absentees from the
kingdom, the remoteness of many estates from the
mansions of the resident gentry, (which, together,
render it no uncommon case to find a tract of country
containing some scores of square miles without one
family of note,) it will be iirtuitively clear that there
can be no balance, nor, indeed, any the least propor-
tion, between the necessities of the poor tenants and
the alms of their landlords*."
As to the present inadequate, but meritorious me-
thod of relieving the distresses of poverty, these
remarks occur, which may serve to confirm Arthur
Young's representations of Irish charity, and rectify
some recent misstatements on that subject : ^' Can
there be a spectacle more edifying, and at the same
time more reproachful to an affluent landlord, than
* Dr. Woodward, Argument, &c. pp. 17, 18, 19.
^/^iUpp. 19, 20.
§XIII.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 269
to see (and it is his own neglect if he does not see
or know it) one of his poor tenants feeding another
with bread taken, as it were, from the mouths of his
own children : whilst he who is feasting on the labours
of both, attends to the miseries of neither, but throws
the whole burden of relieving them on those, whom
no reasonable bystander could "think equal to bear
the smallest part of it^"
Speaking of the inherent right of the poor to rea-
sonable sustentation, he concludes his unanswerable
arguments thus : '^ It would be a waste of words,
and a disgrace to reasoning, to labour to prove a
point so clear as this ; that the richer members of
society, who are a minority, have no right to exclude
the lower class, who are a majority, from any portion
of the public patrimony, without securing to them
the resource of a subsistence ; when they must other-
wise be reduced to the dreadful alternative of break-
ing through those regulations, or perishing by a duti-
ful observance of them^."
This admirable writer proceeds to particularize the
descriptions of persons who ought more especially to
be the objects of the national charity ; which he says
are, 1. The infant poor^; 2. The sick poor^; and,
3. The aged poor^. Alluding to the latter, he makes
this striking remark ; '' If at the close of life they
become a burden ; and, having only to plead their
former services, have not that plea allowed, from
reasons of policy;" he says, "it would be a still higher
degree of economy, and even mercy, to adopt the
* Dr. Wooodward, Argument, Sec. p. 21. * Ibid. p. 28.
' Ibid, p. 30. "' Ibid. p. 32. '' Ibid. p. 33.
270 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [§XIIir
refined Indian policy of putting an immediate end
to them^"
Nor can I dismiss this interesting writer without
inserting his answer to those who urge that the legal
relief of poverty encourages idleness and dissipation.
After having proved directly the contrary, by the
experience of mankind in every country where such
provision has been established^ he adds, " But to
take this argument in its strongest bearing, and con-
fine ourselves to the case of an idle, profligate man,
who in the extremity of age or sickness cries out for
food or medicine ; can any one avow, that we should
suppress every tender feeling, stop our hand when,
by the instinct of compassion, it is stretching forth
relief to him, and, with a stoical indifference, suffer
him to perish, from a deep and doubtful speculation
whether such relief may not encourage idleness, and
become, in the end, a political evil ? And if we may,
without injury to the state, (and must, if w^e expect
mercy ourselves,) relieve the distress, though we
blame the cause ; wherein consists the inexpediency
of obhging those of the rich, who are too distant or
dissipated to know, or too callous to regard, the mi-
sery of the poor, to contribute to its relief, and not
throw the whole burden (as at present) on the resi-
dent, the considerate, and the benevolent ? — for a legal
provision hath this double advantage above voluntary
alms, that it is at once most equitable to those who
pay, and most equal and effectual to those who
received
^^ Now if no reasoning can justify such obduracy,
' Dr. Woodward, Argument, &c. p. 34. ' Ibid, p 39.
§ Xrri.] AND THEIR REMEDIES 271
as would permit a wretch to languish without help in
age, or sickness, because he had not made a pro-
vident use of his health and strength ; on what prin-
ciple shall we conclude, from the imprudence of the
parent, against all compassion to his orphan children ?
on what pretext shall we exclude from the public care
the distresses of the laborious and frugal, which were
owing neither to their own, nor their parents' political
sins ; but took their rise from high rents and low
wages, from the scarcity of bread, or the check of a
manufacture ; from the sudden increase of family, or
the death of cattle ; from disease unassisted by medi-
cine ; and in consequence, perhaps, of that want of
help, the untimely loss of an industrious father ^ ?"
The foregoing are a few extracts from this short,
but striking pamphlet ; the divinity, humanity, and
policy of the principle advocated, are unanswerable.
To the honour of its author, he was one of the first,
if not the very first to propose the extension of the
system of poor-laws to Ireland ; his proposition may
be awhile longer resisted ; but backed, as it is, by the
duties and feelings of humanity, it will assuredly
prevail.
(30.) But, in treating of the aifairs of Ireland, it is
totally impossible to lose sight of the intimate con-
nexion which exists between the two countries ; and
as, in the evil of absenteeism, we have shown its bear-
ings on the agricultural interests of England ; so, in
reference to a provision for the poor, the latter divi-
sion of the empire has a deep interest at stake, and
one which, before long, she will assuredly assert,
' Dr. Woodward, Argument, pp. 39, 40.
272 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [§ XIII.
equally for the protection of her own poor, and those
of Ireland. It will require few words to explain
what I mean, or prove what I am about to assert :
The want of a provision for the poor of Ire-
land (and I WILL INCLUDE THOSE OF SCOTLAND
also) is a GRIEVOUS INJURY TO THE WORKING CLASSES
OF England. They are injured by the market of
labour being overstocked, and greatly depressed by
the multitudes who are annually making this country
their asylum : in the harvest-field, in the factory, or,
in short, in every sphere of industry, the English
labourer and workman finds himself interfered with,
and his remuneration reduced, if not himself thrown
actually out of employment, by this constant and vast
emigration. The poor creatures who take refuge
in this country, whom Dr. Chalmers calls " hosts of
locusts,," I do not blame, (absenteeism has deprived
them of labour and of bread, and they are pursuing it
to obtain, if possible^ a little of both) ; on the con-
trary, I would receive them, and, were I to determine,
extend to them, at all hazards, the benefit of our own
benevolent institutions : but, in the mean timCj I
cannot but reprobate, in the strongest possible terms,
the conduct of those who are driving and ^^ clearing"
them from their estates and the country, and, by so
doing, are expelling multitudes of them to this ; while
they are perpetrating an irreparable wrong on the
unhappy creatures they are the cause of expatriating,
they are inflicting a serious and an increasing injury on
the poorer classes of this country ; and all, forsooth,
that the Irish landlord, often an absentee, who now
does not contribute a farthing to their relief, may
§ XIII.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 273
have larger farms^ and, as he thinks, a greater *' sur-
plus produce." This is not to be borne. The
interests of our own poor imperiously demand that
those of Ireland should be legally supported.
(31.) But in proposing poor-laws for Ireland, I
would not lose sight of that evil which has rendered
them the more necessary, and which, when esta-
blished, would still prevent them from working all the
good they are naturally calculated to produce ; I
mean absenteeism. To discourage and suppress this,
as far as possible, without having recourse to harsher
or more direct means, I would propose that the pro-
perty of all absentees (properly such) should contri-
bute in at least a two-fold proportion to this national
charity*; the additional rate to be levied on such
by a bill drawn by the overseer directly on the
party. This would, in some slight degree, compel
them to succour that poverty which they have occa-
sioned, and which the experience of centuries shows
they never will voluntarily relieve ; and it would,
moreover, in its operation, give some portion of
employment to those whom their unnatural deser-
tion has thrown out of bread,
. (32.) Furthermore: another genuine offspring of
absenteeism is the system of subletting ; creating a
class, who, generally speaking, must be more than men,
circumstanced as they are, to be less than exactors
and oppressors. Utterly impossible is it for the dis-
tant landlord, on any such system, to discharge a
single duty he owes to his dependents ; and it amounts
to a miracle, in all instances, whatever may be his
' It has been proposed, and by great authorities, that absentees
should bear the entire expense.
T
274 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [§ XIII.
natural disposition, if such are not harassed and ground
down to the utmost possible degree of human endu-
rance. The dark picture of cruelty and wrongs which
this practice inevitably occasions, cannot be over-
charged ; it is equally an enemy to the landlord, the
tenant, and the country ; and what sort of a national
offence must absenteeism be, to demand such an ally?
Wherever the absentee may move, however he may
bask in the beams of pleasure and prosperity, he still
casts this dark and distant shadow, in which unseen
cruelties and wrongs are perpetrated with impunity,
and in obscurity; a shadow which wraps a whole
country in wretchedness and despair. To this cruel
and tyrannous system we have seen how much of that
turbulence and insurbordination, which so frequently
agitate Ireland, and which are invariably terminated
so tragically, is justly attributed. I should, on every
account, be induced to take decisive steps against this
fatal pest. Bearing in mind the poverty which it in-
variably creates, and those from whom it exacts its
gains, I would act accordingly : I would levy an ad-
ditional rate on every several letting (at least out of
the same family) to which the owner should volun-
tarily subject his property, and payable by himself.
This would make some, though I confess an inade-
quate distinction, between those who are, and ever
have been, the curse of Ireland, and such who are
pursuing a course which scatters blessings around
them. These propositions would have, of course, a
prospective operation only ; and to render them fair
and efficient, in case of any future lessees becoming
against the consent of the proprietor, middlemen
§ XIII.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 275
(further than letting their labouring cottagers land,
regulated in rent by the price themselves pay, a prac-
tice which ought constantly to be encouraged), their
leases to be forfeited. I purposely avoid entering on
the consideration of the subletting act, in thus allud-
ing to the mercenary interests, almost peculiar to
Ireland, interposed between the landlord and the
cultivator, equally to the prejudice of both, and so
injurious to the country.
(33.) In proposing these lenient measures in rela-
tion to absenteeship, it perhaps may be objected, that
England derives the benefit which Ireland loses, on
account of this fatal practice ; and this, to a certain
extent, is undoubtedly true ; which circumstance^
combined with the fact that the wealthy not only ot
the kingdom, has a tendency to concentrate in Eng-
land, but that much of that of our immense foreigrt
possessions does ultimately do so, ought to teach us
the injustice of upbraiding the peasantry of Ireland,
compared with those of England, with their poverty.
But, as it regards England itself, it is a lamentable
fact, that the same evil, absenteeship, is, on a general
balance, annually abstracting many millions of our
wealth, and is the undoubted source of much poverty
and suffering. The absentees are, in every point of
view, as Adam Smith has intimated, fair subjects of
taxation ; I do not mean that sort of taxation which
should fall equally on all British subjects, and would
consequently punish the meritorious in order to reach
them; but one which they should be made exclusively to
bear. Granting that they have a right to desert their
country, if they choose, still they have not a right, while
T 2
276 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [§ XIII.
SO doing, to avail themselves of the advantages of its
high values, without sustaining any part of the heavy
burdens which the system imposes : weighing their
interest in this selfish and dishonest balance, just in
proportion as they shift their share of the public bur-
dens and private duties from themselves, they impose
upon others the additional weight. The property of
these ought instantly to be taxed, and a part of the
proceeds applied to giving employment to Ireland, as
some compensation for that loss of it which the Union
could not but occasion, on account of the necessary
absenteeship of part of the legislature, for a consi-
derable period of every year. In closing these remarks
upon absenteeism, it may be proper to state, that no
rigid or illiberal construction of the term is intended;
nothing that would impede those occasional visits to
other countries, which either pleasure or improvement
may dictate, and which do not involve that continued
absence (from far different motives), and consequent
loss to the country^ which such a desertion, on the
part of some of its wealthiest families^ necessarily
occasions.
(34.) A system like the English poor-laws, re-
formed^ and adapted to the present times, and fitted
to the peculiar circumstances of the country ; and,
above all, connected with labour, in all cases where
the benefited are capable of rendering it, when thus
carried into execution, would have the effect of fining
absenteeism, and especially underletting ; of keeping
at home some part of that immense sum of which
Ireland is annually robbed; and of calHng forth and
directing a mighty mass of that labour, which, if it be
§ XIII.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 277
not itself capital, is the means by which capital is
created. Ireland, beyond all countries 1 have ever
witnessed, presents the most inviting field for exer-
tions of this general kind, exertions which could only
be publicly undertaken, and which it would be worthy
of the nation to accomplish. On all her shores, in
many of her rivers, and in almost every district, the
most beneficial works might be accomplished ; these
present themselves in almost every form, and at every
step. I will mention, at present, only one of them.
How many hundreds of thousands of tons of hemp
and flax might be annually raised, by draining and
cultivating a small part only of the immense bogs with
which the face of Ireland is deformed ! — land pecu-
liarly favourable to such produce, and capable of rais-
ing any other, when so prepared and drained \ Ar-
rangements of the most satisfactory nature might be
entered into with the proprietors, either for the pur-
chase or the lease of such ; and a little exertion of
this kind would instantly render us independent of the
Baltic, in regard to some of the most important of
our naval or domestic supplies. I would even incur
the odium of a recurrence to the exploded, and, as it
is termed, barbarous system of our forefathers, by
affording direct encouragement to such endeavours,
even when privately undertaken, rather than that
they should not be attempted. I would bestow part
of the taxes obtained on those foreign products
which might be so well raised there, giving em-
ployment, and adding to the permanent wealth of
the country, in direct bounties upon such culture.
' liartc, Essays on Miisbandry, p, 59.
278 IRELAND ; ITS EVILS, [§ XIII.
Bounties! methinks I hear the political economists
exclaim. Aye, bounties. Do not these, I would ask,
resort to them, at least sanction by their dogmas those
who do ? What is the whole scheme of expatriation,
now silently pursued, and proposed upon so much
larger a scale, by which the empire incurs so great an
expense, to ship off numbers of its industrious hands,
but bounties of another kind, — bounties for the dis-
couragement of internal labour ? But bounties for its
direct encouragement are not, forsooth, deemed scienti-
fic. With more still to be done in that country than
can be performed in centuries ; with hands unemployed
which might commence those magnificent tasks that
await future generations ; what a strange evidence of
ignorance or cruelty it is thus to slight the only instru-
ments capable of effectuating them, — human beings !
to regard them as of no value, nay, as of less than
none ; to incur a heavy item of public expense in
shipping them off to certain distress, and often to
speedy destruction ! There lies before me, in the
newspapers of the day, an account of the wretched
fate of many of those recently sent off to our North
American provinces ; sickness and want are sweeping
them off by wholesale, and so far, indeed, the expe-
dient is finally successful in the eyes of those who
believe that human beings are become "superfluous."
Such feelings, however, I am certain do not influence
those who have unfortunately acted upon such mis-
taken views ; I trust these accounts are exaggerations :
but there must be a broad and deep foundation of
misery on which they rest ; and, unfortunately, they
receive a melancholy confirmation from what we have
§ Xlir.J AND THEIR REMEDIES. 279
previously heard, and have fully known to be the case
in these deportations thither, or to the southern part
of the opposite continent. With the knowledge of
these things, however, calculations are entered into as
to the hundreds of thousands of tons of British ship-
ping, and the hundreds of thousands of British subjects
that they might transport ; and, to render the scheme
rather more palatable at home, a table, I see, is given,
where the personal expenses of each are estimated,
and a loan proposed for the general purposes of the
plan, repayable by the transports after a certain term.
Compared with stock so created, the South American
bubbles are solidity itself.
(35.) But I repeat, again and again, and, were it in
my power^ I would speak it with a voice of thunder
in the ear of those who, in conformity with the modern
dogmas, are mainly instrumental in these deportations,
that our fellow-subjects, at all events, cannot be super-
fluous till our lands are cultivated ; and that the best
colonies we can plant, whether in reference to encou-
raging agriculture or manufactures, are those which
might be planted on the deserts of our European empire.
It may be answered, that, to enclose and cultivate these
on a large plan, would not be profitable as a specu-
lation. It is admitted. Providence is too wise and
too kind to oiFer any such inducements to the mono-
polists. But afford facilities to lesser cultivators, by
whose eiforts all classes would be benefited, and they
will effectuate, on a small scale, what has rarely been
performed on a large one. This plan is in the order
of nature; is that by which every great object is ac-
complished ; and is best conducive to the real interests
280
IRELAND ; ITS EVILS,
[^ Xlll.
of society. We have seen the wonders which in-
dustry has effected in the Netherlands, and we are
assured, that they have all been wrought by those
divided and individual exertions, without which none
of them would have been successful ^
(36.) The following table will speak to the heart, it
is hoped, as well as to the eye, and exhibit, not a field
of labour merely to the unemployed population of
Ireland, but a mine of wealth to the empire, compared
with which the gems of India, or the metals of Ame-
rica sink into utter worthlessness : to which may be
added the circling ^* wastes of the sea," an expression
I shall still continue to repeat ; the due improvement
of which would enlarge the limits of industry, and the
means of subsistence, to an extent literally incalculable.
And yet we fancy ourselves as in a state of siege, and
are actually conveying our forces out of the citadel of
the empire, in apprehension of a scarcity of provisions I
General Statement of the Cultivated, Uncultivated, and Unprofitable
Land of the United Kingdom, from 3d Rep. on Emigration, p. 361.*
Cultivated.
Uncultivated
Wastes capa-
ble of Im-
provement.
Unprofitable.
Total.
England . .
Wales . . .
Scotland . .
Ireland . , .
British Islands.
ACRES.
25,632,000
3,117,000
5,265,000
12,125,280
388,690
ACRES.
3,454,000
530,000
5,950,000
4,900,000
1 66,000
ACRES.
3,256,400
1,105,000
8,523,930
2,416,664
569,469
ACRES.
32,342,400
4,752,000
19,738,930
19,441,944
1,119,159
46,522,970
15,000,000
15,871,463
77,394,433
* The second column in this table is what claims our primary attention, and
fully shows where ten times the number of our idle and starving poor might be
profitably employed. Even the third, which gives the extent of the unprofita-
ble land of the kingdom, might be safely resorted to if it should ever become
necessary to do so. No land, under a certain elevation, is unprofitable. (Lin-
naeus, p. 29, Inaug. Harte's Essays, p. 88. Remarks on Landed and Commer-
cial Policy, p. 194, &c.) By far the most productive soils of England, and even
the Netherlands, were formerly deemed " unprofitable."
* See Abbe Mauu, Communicalions to Board of Agric. vol.i.
i XIV.j AND THEIR REMEDIES. 281
§ XIV. (1.) Such are some of the propositions which
I have to make in behalf of Ireland; others, highly-
important in themselves, but of a less momentous and
general character^ I shall waive at present, in favour
of one, which, while on this subject, can neither be
overlooked nor hastily dismissed ; involving, as it
does, without a figure of speech, the remaining vital
interest of a country thus deserted and degraded ;
that interest which gives the limited measure of em-
ployment and food which is still afforded to the mass
of the community, and in the due support of which
the best hopes of their future improvement are
founded. But this proposition is, strictly speaking, of
a negative character, and goes to the continuation of
an advantage, which has now been for many years
enjoyed, rather than the bestowment of any new or
additional benefit^ : it implores, that if no new policy
shall be pursued to serve and assist Ireland, none shall
be adopted that shall injure her interests or complete
her ruin. It is almost needless to explain, that I refer
to a continuation of a free and exclusive access to the
markets of Great Britain for her agricultural products ;
or, in other words, that the legislature shall still con-
tinue to protect her almost only branch of national
' Ireland has long had access to the British market for many of
the products of her soil, to which privilege was added, early in this
century, an unrestrained trade for her corn : to extend this to
foreigners would destroy its value. In much of the last century,
the direct encouragement of English tillage, by bounties, operated
as a bonus upon Irish pasturage ; and, now that an increased
population there, in spite of the dogmas of our antipopulalionists,
has greatly augmented her disposable produce, I contend that she
is, at this moment, in the enjoyment of a less effectual protection
than she was during many periods of the last century.
282 IRELAND; ITS EVJLS, [§ XIV.
industry by efficient corn-laws. If we, in England,
want additional supplies, let us seek them in the half-
cultivated fields of Ireland ; where, were additional
labour, now worse than wasted in wandering and
oeggary, applied and well directed (I appeal to every
practical agriculturist who has witnessed them), the
product would be at once doubled ; or in those fertile
wastes of so vast an extent, which have, as yet, never
been cultivated at all. Let us obtain them, I say, thence,
rather than from the plains of Poland or of Prussia :
let us employ and feed our fellow- subjects, rather than
the serfs and slaves of foreign countries. That this
is the proposal of policy, as well as of justice, humanity,
and patriotism, however unpopular for the moment,
I shall proceed to show ; nor is there any other that
can even contemplate to preserve to Ireland her daily
bread; for the scheme of depopulation propounded
by the Emigration Committee is, thank God, as im-
practicable as it is revolting. Withdraw this last
protection, therefore, and the wish, expressed, I think,
by one of the interlocutors in Edmund Spenser's
View of Ireland, that we could set our foot upon it^
and sink it to the bottom of the Atlantic ocean, would,
if accomplished, be an act of kindness.
(2.) But this proposition of giving an efficient, not
a nominal protection to the agriculture of Ireland, I
am anxious to state, iti limine, is not for the purpose
of securing a large national rental. I shall not, how-
ever, concede to any modern theorist that this is not
an essential advantage ; and has always been regarded
as such by all our best writers, even when the reasons
§ XIV.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 283
for supporting it were not an hundredth part as strong
as they are at present \ It is not^ 1 repeat, for the
purpose of securing the present rental of a Duke of
Devonshire, or an Earl Fitzwilliam (though no one
can be indifferent upon this point, and its necessary
consequences, who is at all concerned that the na-
tion should preserve its honour, and the national
creditors their property), nor yet to serve the in-
terests of the great cultivators, but it is in behalf
of an infinitely more numerous class, whom the
arguers on this question generally find it conve-
nient to lose sight of, that the proposition of a con-
tinued and efficient protection of Irish agriculture is
now urged. It is for the purpose of continuing in
work the cottiers ; and of preserving the property
of the innumerable little freeholders of Ireland; who
have, most of them_, if not all, obtained and purchased
their interest in the soil under the operation and gua-
rantee of laws which determined in great measure
its value ; laws which, however modified (and they
have occasionally been unfortunatly so ^), have for the
last century and a half professedly protected agricul-
ture, and which protection, according to Dalton (no
mean authority), is even part of "the common law^."
To abrogate these, then, or render them inefficient,
would commit as direct a robbery upon such, as though
the legislature were to confiscate their possessions, and
' " All things must be done that may effectually increase the
value of rent, and the price of land, which will add true strength
to the nation." — (Davenant, Ways and Means, p. 140.) Of this
opinion were Sir Joshua Child, Gee, Sir W. Petty, John Locke, &c.,
to whose works I refer the reader on this subject.
' See the Right Honourable W'ni. Huskisson's Letter to a Con-
stituent on the Corn Laws, p. 10.
'Michael Dalton, Justice, ch. Ivi.
284 IRELAND; ITS EVILS^ [§ XIV.
deliver them over at once to universal idleness and
starvation.
(3.) But in proceeding to consider this part of the
subject^ it is evident that the interests of the cultiva-
tors of Ireland cannot be discussed distinct from those
of Britain ; nor shall I attempt to do so. They are,
as to this question, completely identified : and it
would be no consolation to the Irish labourer thrown
out of employ, to learn that the English one was like-
wise starving (which we are informed is now almost
the case^); nor any compensation to the little Irish
freeholder to know, that the same act which had
ruined him, had likewise destroyed the property of
the same class throughout the empire. For that such
must be the case, at least to a very great extent, and
in no long time, is demonstrably plain^. The cool
proposition of Ricardo, and others of his school, that
the poorer lands of the country should go out of cul-
tivation, involves, however worded, loss of labour and
destruction of property to multitudes. Such lands
confessedly require the most labour ; they are the pos-
sessions of the smallest proprietors ; and are, generally
speaking, as inferior in quality as they are limited in
extent, compared with the rich abbey lands and ancient
€nclosures of the great land-owners. The proposition,
then, is one of direct plunder, as it regards tens of
thousands of the peasantry of Ireland, and of the
yeomanry of England, whose lands must be aban-
doned, and their labour at the same time be rendered
equally valueless, altering at the same time all the
' Report on Labourers' Wages, 1824, passim. See pp. 42, 57, &c.
= Kight Honoiiiable Wm. Huskissou's Letter, &c. p. 13.
§ XIV.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 285
relative values of the country : in order that the stock-
jobber's pound-note may pass for thirty shillings !
Much is said at present by those who add honesty
to their humanity, about an indemnity to the West In-
dian proprietors, supposing that the nation, which long
unhappily encouraged, should no longer tolerate sla-
very ; but who proposes to indemnify these ? They are
to be satisfied with the prophesies of political economy,
whose wisdom and prescience are beginning to mani-
fest themselves, and whose kind partiality for them
was never doubted. But, seriously, if such a plan as
this is to be tolerated, there needs to be no difficulty
about the national incumbrances : these same projec-
tors make none whatever regarding that part of them
which the necessary relief of the poor has long im-
posed ; they are to be paid off at length, in a " fair,
distinct, and precise notice" — that they shall receive
no more^ they will then be done with. Next, the
great monopolies, as they are now denominated, are
to be destroyed, and the property involved in them
confiscated, as the Edinburgh Review recommends,
for the public good^; why may we not, therefore,
lastly deal with the national debt itself on the same
truly patriotic principle, spunge it off at once, or rather
that part of it due to a hundred thousand or so of the
smallest and poorest claimants r
(4.) Political economy, it is true, rarely embar-
rasses its system with attending to either rights or
wrongs ; but I think it would be difficult for common
honesty to distinguish between so altering the law,
' Malthus, Essay on Population, p. 538.
* Edinburgh Review, No. xcii, p. 405, &c.
286 IRELAND; JTS EVILS, [§ XIV.
in letter or in spirit, as to disfranchise these free-
holders, and altering it so as to rob the public cre-
ditor. The course of events has already, and in the
space of a very few years, greatly enlarged the capital
of the fundholder, and proportionally increased the
real value of his dividend, though not its nominal
amount : the same improvement has taken place as
it regards the interest of all the monied capitals in
the country ; while, on the contrary, the agricultural
property of the nation has, in the same period, been
as strikingly deteriorated: but still this does not satisfy
the jobbers and projectors ; they meditate a blow which
is to disable, if not destroy, the latter at once. Ho-
nesty, however, in their case will be found the best
policy, for, so sure as they should succeed in turning
a large proportion of the lands of the kingdom out of
cultivation, so sure would they strike off at least a
similar proportion of the national debt. The nation
can, and will pay it on the same system under which
it has been contracted ; but it neither could, nor would_,
under an opposite one, which should have intention-
ally diminished its property to an immense amount,
so as perhaps hardly to exceed its fixed incumbrance.
The fundholders are certainly the mortgagees of that
property ; but it would be well for them to consider,
whether, under such treatment, it is quite certain that
the freeholders of England would allow them to fore-
close. If the condition of the nation is such as to de-
mand great sacrifices, in the name of patriotism, let
them be made ; — but made justly and impartially, not
by singling out different interests, so as to sacrifice them
to each other, one by one, for the public good. A far
§ XIV.] AND THEIR REMEDIED. 287
surer way of serving even the separate interests of the
country, is, resolutely and perseveringly to support the
whole ; to act upon the principle which all are ready
enough to acknowledge theoretically — their reciprocal
dependence ; and consequently to reconcile and re-
unite in bonds of mutual good-will those pursuits
which, in a country like this, can never be prosperous
but when they are indissoluble.
(5.) One of the first questions to be determined
in coming to a conclusion on the subject now under
consideration, is, whether the kingdom is capable of
sustaining its population by internal cultivation.
That this may be confidently answered in the affirma-
tive is now no longer a matter of doubt, even were
our numbers decupled. The same cheering fact I
trust I shall fully prove, in reference to every coun-
try upon earth, by calculations, showing that^ on
the universal law of human increase, it will never
be otherwise ^ On this interesting subject I must
decline dwelling at present, having entered into it at
large elsewhere ; showing, that the ample provision
of nature is administered and distributed by exertion
or labour : a law as universal as it is benevolent ; being,
* Were, however, the theory espoused by Mr. Malthus true, the
policy of admitting foreign supplies is rendered still more doubtful
and dangerous. These would, of course, according to that prin-
ciple, encourage the increase of human beings in the ratio of which
he speaks ; and not only here, but in the supplying countries, would
this multiplication go forwards, till the latter should have become
so populous as to be no longer capable of yielding them. In what
sort of a predicament then will the nation be placed (and in no long
time) which had been thus subsisted, and consequently encouraged
to go on multiplying so far beyond the utmost limits of internal
supply ? I admit no such principle of increase ; but how will those
who maintain it answer this question?
288 IRELAND ; ITS EVILS, [§ XVI.
in the case of th ose apparent exceptions, created by
civil institutions, still obeyed vicariously, and not
evaded. The manner in which the labour of human
beings and their wants are balanced — adjusted, on the
one hand^ to the necessities that have to be supplied,
and, on the other, to the powers that have to
supply them; and lastly, the pre-eminence of agri-
cultural labour in this and every other respect, is there
dwelt upon. To such topics, therefore, I shall not
now recur ; and in making these observations, at pre-
sent, essential as they are to the subject, I would not be
understood to disparage any other description of honest
labour whatsoever, all of which I honour^ and would
far rather elevate than depress. Let the generous
maxim of England, '^ Live and let live," be the motto
of them all. By assigning the first consideration to
this primordial, most essential^ and incomparably the
most universal pursuit of mankind, other and depen-
dent avocations are as little degraded, as would be
a family of children by giving the precedency to
their living parent. These, however, have too many
and too powerful advocates to render it necessary to
dwell upon their claims; and so successful have such
been, that to vindicate the rank of that species of
labour which God and nature have dictated as the first
and most essential, which station has ennobled, and
genius so long illustrated_, actually demands an excuse^
and obtains it only on the score of remaining igno-
rance and barbarism.
One circumstance may render the succeeding de-
fence of British agriculture a matter of some curio-
sity ; it is urged by one totally unconnected with it.
§ XIV.] AND THEIR REMEDIP:S. 289
and who can say with Cecil, — '^ I do not dwell in the
country ; nor am I acquainted with the plough ; but
I think that whosoever doth not maintain the plough,
destroys the kingdom ^"
(6.) First, then, and to awaken attention to the im-
portance of the subject, it may not be unnecessary to
present to the reader proofs of the immense supe-
riority of the agricultural to every other interest, even
in this great commercial nation ; as so many attempts
are either ignorantly or mendaciously made, espe-
cially by a part of the periodical press, to impress a
contrary opinion upon those who will not give them-
selves the trouble to examine or hardly to think upon
the subject. The supposed superiority of all other
kinds of industry united, to agricultural, singly con-
sidered^ receives a colour from the divisions of the
census, in which the ^' families chiefly employed in
agriculture ;" those '^ chiefly employed in trades,
manufactures, and handicraft ;" and lastly, '^all other
famihes not comprised in the preceding classes," are
discriminated. The first of these, in the grand total
of Great Britain, amounting to 978,656 ; the second
to 1,350,239 ; and the last (of which it is evident by
far the larger proportion must have belonged to the
agricultural interest) to 612,488. As to the second
class, I find 415,507 described as interchangers or
traders^, and, as such, at least as dependent upon
agriculture as upon manufacture ^ This explanation
suffices to show, at once, that the latter interest is in-
ferior to the former, which_, including all its various
'Cecil; D'Ewes, p. 674. * Statistical Illustrations, p. 15.
^ Right Hon. W. Huskisson, Letter on the Corn Laws, p. 12.
U
290 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [§ XIV.
branches, only comprises between a third and a fourth
of the population of the island.
But the general classification, thus rectified, falls far
short of indicating the immense superiority in numbers
of those who^ properly speaking, belong to the agri-
cultural interest. That a certain proportion of those
comprised in the second class^ viz., the families em-
ployed in trade and handicraft, must exclusively belong
to the former one, is certain. Adam Smith needed
not to have informed us that " the smiths, carpenters,
wheelwrights, ploughwrights, shoemakers, &c. ^" — in
short, all the artisans of a strictly agricultural vil-
lage, in which there is not a single manufacturer,
are as decidedly belonging to agriculture, as if they
were in the field instead of in the shop or at the forge ;
and precisely the same observation holds good of a
non-manufacturing town in a county wholly agri-
cultural. This proposition I never heard disputed,
and surely it needs no proof. To ascertain the propor-
tion of such necessary for the carrying on of that great
pursuit, and dependent upon it, is, therefore, no great
difficulty. We have numbers of such parishes, and
not a few such entire counties. As an example of the
latter, take Lincolnshire : there were in that county,
in 1821, 34,900 agricultural families ; 15,845 engaged
in other branches of industry, of which hardly any
were, strictly speaking, manufacturing ; besides 8,015^
which, as neither farmers nor mechanics, doubtless
belonged, generally speaking, to the landed interest.
Again ; in Cambridgeshire, I believe similarly circum-
stanced, there were at the same period 15,536 agri-
' Adam Smith, "Wealth of Nations, b. iii. ch. 1.
^ XIV.] AND THEIR RExMEDIflS. 291
cultural families ; 6964 engaged in trade, handicraft,
&c. ; and 3103 not belonging to either of the former
classes. Now, it is quite certain, that as these coun-
ties are, to all intents and purposes, agricultural, the
numbers there returned as engaged in other pur-
suits, indicate the proportion throughout the whole
census, which is employed by, and belong to that in-
terest solely, however classed. Including the third
division, which, it is evident, must every where prin-
cipally belong to the first, and in these counties neces-
sarily so, we find that sixty-six per cent, ought to be
added to those returned as engaged in agriculture,
before we obtain the number dependent upon it ; but
excluding the gentry, clergy, &c., from the computa-
tion, then, taking the above counties for our guide,
forty-four per cent, only must be added, as the pro-
portion virtually, though not ostensibly, engaged in
agricultural pursuits, and solely relying upon that
interest ; all of whom might say, in the words of
the Moor of Venice, the moment it were annihilated,
*' Othello's occupation's gone ^"
It is evident, therefore, that at least the latter pro-
portion must be added to the first column throughout
the census of Great Britain, as that directly engaged
by, if not in, agriculture, though not so returned ;
which will add to the 978,656 families so occupied
430,608, making together 1,409,264; and, reducing
' "The borne consumption and brisk demand for all the various
articles of the retail trader, which has so much contributed to the
prosperity of our towns, would rapidly decline; and farming ser-
vants, and all the trades which depend on agriculture for employ-
ment, would be thrown out of work." — (Right Honourable W. Hus-
kisson's Letter on the Corn Laws, p. 12.)
U2
292 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [§ XIV.
those in the second column to 919,631, — making
nearly 6,900,000 individuals belonging to the agricul-
tural interest ; 4,500,000 to trades, handicrafts, and
manufactures, independent of it ; and 3,000^000 of the
class of gentry, clergy, &c. &c., — what proportion of
these ought to be given to the first division, may be left
to the reader's determination. Certainly an over-
whelming majority ; in proof of which it will be ob-
served^ on a reference to the census, that a far larger
relative number of such is constantly found wherever
agriculture most prevails.
Should it be supposed that, in the preceding calcu-
lation, the numerical superiority of the interest as-
serted is exaggerated^ I will speedily show that, on
the contrary, it is much underrated. Let us advert
to the census of the country more immediately under
our consideration, Ireland : who doubts for an in-
stant that the great mass of the people of that island
subsist and depend on agriculture only ? All the
comparisons put forth make the proportion over-
whelming, and the distress of the country is often,
however ignorantly, attributed to this cause. Mr.
M^Culloch says, three times as great a proportion
are engaged in cultivation there as in England \
Turning, then, to the census of 1821, we find the total
number of those occupied (including, I believe^ the
women and children employed) stated to be 2,836,815
persons ; of whom 1,138,069 were engaged in agricul-
ture^ and 1,698,746 in all other pursuits ; 1,170,044
of the latter being, as it is expressed, chiefly employed
in trade_, manufkctures, or handicraft.
* Report on the State of Ireland, part iv. p. 834.
§ X[V.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 293
But manufactures there are in Ireland, at least in
the norths which, it maybe said, render any calculations
founded on an appeal to the census generally, inad-
missible. Granted. There is, however, an entire pro-
vince of that country, in which these are few ; or at
least too few to affect the general deduction. Con-
naught, certainly, is almost exclusively agricultural.
Yet in that province we find, of the 522,360 persons in
employment, 236,605 only represented as engaged prin-
cipally in agriculture; to these are attached 224,165,
occupied in handicraft, trade, &c. ; and 61,590 follow-
ing other pursuits. But if we were to refer to the
county of Galway, where are its manufactures ? Yet,
of the 134,109 persons employed there^ still less than
half, viz., 66,605 only, are reported as directly engaged
in agriculture, and 67,504 in all other pursuits.
These appeals to the agricultural districts of both
countries will instantly show any reasonable person
the delusive nature of those superficial calculations, as
to the relative importance of the two great interests of
the empire, which have abounded so much of late.
Not a question will be raised by any, excepting the
determined theorist^, but that the proportion I have
taken from the second class, and added to the first, in
order to determine the numbers properly belonging to
the latter, errs greatly in deficiency ; and certainly, had
I adverted to the Irish census when I calculated it
(which I had not then done), I should have greatly en-
larged it ; but as the inquiry will be pursued in a
different manner, it is not necessary to rectify it.
Again ; that a certain and a very large part of the
second class, even when thus diminished, is dependent
294 IRELAND: IT.'S EVILS, r§XIV.
Upon agriculture^ is equally undeniable. That over-
whelming majority of agriculturists and their depen-
dents^ none of whom manufacture for themselves,
undoubtedly give employment to a great proportion
of the 4,500,000 persons still remaining in the latter
division ; to say nothing of the 3,000,000 of the most
opulent individuals in the empire, who, it must be
repeated, belong mainly to the first class, and are
incomparably the best customers, in proportion to
their numbers, of the second.
To determine the proportion of the second class to
which agriculture gives employment, is, I confess, a
matter of greater difficulty than the former calculation ;
nevertheless, there are data enabling us to form some
ideas upon the subject, and they compel us to believe
that they constitute a very considerable majority.
1 do not mean to argue that the manufacturer is
not as essentially necessary to the agriculturist, as
the agriculturist is to the manufacturer ; on the con-
trary, in a well-balanced state of things, they are
mutually and permanently necessary to each other.
My object is to serve the interests of both, by exhi-
biting the magnitude and importance of the one which
our theorists would place in jeopardy ; the destruc-
tion of which, by constant foreign interference, I
contend would inevitably ruin all.
But supposing we could correctly ascertain the
number employed, independently of home demand,
still we have to consider that the amount of the ex-
ported product of the labours of that number, what-
ever it may be, is probably at this moment about
balanced by the importation of the product of foreign
§ XIV.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 295
industry into this country ; their employment, there-
fore, hy foreigners, has the effect^ in most cases, of
putting out of employment, by the same means, an
equal number of our own people ; so that the labour
account is_, so far, balanced, whatever other advan-
tages may result. I would certainly encourage this
intercourse, so far as it is not evidently pernicious ;
always remembering, however, that that description
of labour which depends exclusively or principally on
foreign demand, is in its very nature far more vari-
able and uncertain, and consequently less valuable,
than that which is created by internal consumption ^
(7.) Let us now proceed to substantiate the foregoing
results, by calculations founded upon pecuniary data,
which now seems the prevailing method : — I find, in
a statistical document which manifests considerable
research^ the following statements. There are forty
millions of acres of cultivated land in Great Britain,
and ten millions in Ireland^ the total annual value
of the produce of which is three hundred millions :
the annual value of the manufactured or artificial
production of the united kingdom amounts to
£ 170,000,000 ^ The total of the products and manu-
factures^ then, exported, estimated, at their declared
value, 0^37,573,918: but from the latter sum must
be deducted a due proportion of the value of the raw
materials of foreign growth or production, of which
some of them were fabricated, before the remunera-
' " Those riches are of a bad kind that depend on accidental cir-
cumstances, and not upon the industry of a people and the cultiva-
tion of their lands." — (Montesquieu, vol. ii. p. 182.)
-The above statement is upon authority, nhich I copied, but regret
to say Ihave forgotten from whom, not having noted it at the time.
296 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [§ XjV.
tion of British industry can be estimated ; the prin-
cipal articles only of such imports, such as cotton,
silk, wool, hemp, and flax, amounting to many mil-
lions, while not to one halfpenny of such deductions
is the product of agricultural labour liable ^ The
total amount, as has been before stated, it is con-
ceived by some is about balanced by our imports.
Some of these statements may appear exaggerations :
I will, therefore, insert similar ones from another
authority, reminding the reader that the exactness of
the actual amounts is less important to the argument
than the correctness of their relative proportions,
which it is not likely can err very greatly. Colqu-
houn, in 1812 (since when upwards of a million
acres of land have been enclosed), thus estimates
these values : — " Agriculture, in all its branches, includ-
ing minerals, nearly 226 millions ; manufactures, and
handicraft work of every branch, rather above 114
millions^: foreign exports (exclusive of those to Ire-
land) were that year nearly thirty-eight millions*."
' It may be interesting to present the imports of this nature in
a single year. I take the last to which 1 have had access. — (Pari.
Paper, No. 541, 1827.)
Flax . . . . £2,078,844 ^ Ireland might be encou-
Hemp. . . . 490,603 i ^•t^^V.^'°'\^l-^'^ '"
^.„ * -' abundant quantities.
Silk .... 1,437,336
Thrown ditto . . 928,345
Cotton . . . 7,405,619
Wool .... 1,436,605
£13,777,253
Besides untanned hides, dyeing goods, &c. &c,, to an immense
amount, which enter largely into the values of certain of our ex-
ports.
* Colquhoun, Treatise on the Wealth, &c. of the British Empire,
p. 65.
^Rather more than 31 millions, declared values, according to the
account in the Statistical Tables, p. 44.
§ XIV.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 297
From the latter sum must of course be subtracted
the difference between official and real values^ and the
cost of the foreign raw materials of which some of
them consisted^ to make the comparison correct : but
without these great deductions, which may serve as
a set-off against any incorrectness in the statement,
of which, however, I am not aware, — and exclusive of
the inland trade_, which he makes to amount that
year to thirty-one and a half millions, — the compari-
son between the actual value of our agricultural pro-
ducts, our manufactured ones, and the amount of both
exported, stands about in this proportion, 6 — 3 — 1.
In the former statement about thus, 8-— 4| — 1. Both
of these calculations, however, for reasons already
alluded to, give the proportion of the last class much
too large, small as it appears.
The same inquiry may be pursued in a still differ-
ent mode, that is, by examining the proportions which
these interests respectively contributed to the pro-
perty tax ; only we have here no means of determin-
ing what part of the gains arising from commerce
and manufactures fairly belonged to our foreign trade,
which forms an important branch of our present sub-
ject. The last product of that tax amounted to
£15,298,982, from which must be deducted the
sums of £1,167,678 and £2,885,505; the former
being the amount charged upon pensions, salaries^
&c., and the latter that on funded property, neither
of which has to do with the present comparison.
The remainder amounts to £11,245,799, of which
£8,099,467 were the contribution of the landed inte-
rest, including both that of the owners and occupiers,
298 IRELAND; ITS ENILS, [§ XIV.
and £3)14:6,322, that wliich arose from trade, inanii-
factures_, &c., even including professional gains. What
part, therefore, of the latter sum fell upon foreign
trade, the preceding inquiries may partly enahle us
to judge ; certainly not nearly one-third ; but admit-
ting it to be as much, in that case the proportions
would stand thus, 8 — 3 — 1.
The last method of comparison, of which I shall
avail myself, is that which is afforded by the public
accounts relative to our national charity, the poor's
rate of England and Wales. The last report to
whicli I have at present access, is that of 1824, in
which the whole amount assessed (including some
extraneous charges) is £6,703,501. Of this sum
£4,693,162 was levied on the landed interest;
£1,762,950 on dwelling houses; and £247,389 on
mills and factories^! The last of these, however,
either find or create a fair proportion of poor wherever
they are established ; and yet this is the proportion of
their contribution. It must be observed, that the
second of these items includes the tax, to this charity,
of all the great landed proprietors in the country ; as
such pay upon their house-rent or its value, they are
of course, in this case, included in the commercial
and manufacturing class. Still, however, without
any correction whatever, on this reasonable ground
the proportions stand thus : 19 — 7 — 1.
Similar comparisons might be founded on a variety
of other data, such as the estimated circulation of the
country, the banking returns of the kingdom, &c. ;
but the former statements resting on recorded facts,
* Report from the Select Committee on the Poor's Rate, 1824.
Wiv.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 299
it would only weaken the argument, to place it on
conjectural grounds. I will only add^ that the public
documents already adduced are, as it strikes me, all
that bear upon the subject ; with these no liberties
can be taken, and^ so far from having strained them
to my purpose, it will have been seen, that in no in-
stance have the deductions been as strong as they
w^ould have warranted and seemed to require.
But, still, should the foregoing conclusions be
cavilled at or disputed, I will cheerfully leave the
determination of the question even to those who are
the most adverse to them, on one condition, which is
simply this ; that, in making their own calculations,
they will, as the Chinese do, reckon up the inhabitants
of the United Kingdom by mouths, recollecting, at
the same time, that they have backs, and that, as
human beings, at least in these regions, they require
habitations and furniture ; and finally, that, by a
benevolent ordination of Divine Providence, the wants
thus created are perpetually recurring. The compu-
tations founded upon these considerations, of however
moderate a nature, will immediately manifest to such
the necessary pre-eminence of agriculture, compared
with every other pursuit, or all of them put together* ;
' There are in the population of the United Kingdom at least fif-
teen millions, who are either adults, or young persons of an age con-
suming of all kinds of agricultural produce, excepting liquor, as
much as adults. Some of these, it is to be feared, live sparingly ;
but considering the numbers in the middle and higher ranks of
society in this kingdom, who live very liberally, it will not be very
difficult to estimate, with sufficient correctness for our purpose,
the immense amounts in agricultural produce that are consumed
annually. To these must, of course, be added, the necessaries
and conveniences of life wliich are demanded by this great popu-
lation. A comparison of the total demand thus created and sup-
300 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [§ XIV.
and next the immense superiority of that part of our
trade which is supported hy home consumption, com-
pared with that dependant upon foreign demand : a
conclusion which ought to gratify every real patriot,
and_, in my humble opinion, the manufacturer in parti-
cular.
Other misconceptions, quite as glaring as the one
disposed of, are entertained touching this important
subject; one of these, that England could not sustain
herself, has been already adverted to, and is now
nearly passed away : the calculations of scientific and
practical men upon this subject, the demonstrations
by which we are surrounded, and the lights of past
experience, warrant us in asserting that she could do
so with as vast an accession to the comforts of her
people as to their numbers ; ratios which, happily for
human beings, advance hand in hand, all that a
darker theory is perpetually uttering to the contrary
notwithstanding. I shall, therefore, only add an
argumentum ad verecundiam to the proofs which have
been previously advanced on this point ; the prime
minister of the country, within less than half a dozen
years back, pronounced that the unexampled dis-
tresses of agriculture proceeded from " over-produc-
tion." If authority of another order will be more ac-
ceptable to some, it is at hand. Mr. Brougham said,
half a dozen years before (when agriculture was far
less depressed), in a speech in parliament, afterwards
printed, that the cause of the distress then existing
plied by internal industry, with that made by foreign trade in the
most prosperous years, sinks the latter into insignificance.
§ XIV.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 301
was " redundance of produce *." The ports of England
had been closed (with one exception) for several years
preceding Lord Liverpool's speech, and yet he stated
that the remedy for the distresses of agriculture was
diminished cultivation. But to what an extent would
an adequate demand increase the produce of the land
already cultured, to say nothing of the thirty milUons
of acres now untouched ! This objection, however,
to do the opponents of agriculture justice, is now
rarely advanced by those who are worth attending to.
The principal argument is founded on *' dear bread,"
which some are of opinion the present system occa-
sions, and which they imagine would be remedied by
a free trade in corn.
(8.) But neither is this objection true. Corn is
not dear ; corn, contrasted with almost every other
product of human labour, is far cheaper than it was
in past times : I say, of human labour ; for the fields
are not, as yet, tilled by steam, nor the harvests
gathered in by complicated machinery. To compare
the labour of the human being, therefore^ with the
products of the steam loom, would be cruel and absurd.
To the point, then: wheat, from 1600 to 1700, ave-
raged 48^. 5cl per quarter 2; from 1700 to 1800, 42^. 9cl
per quarter. Since 1800, a new era has arisen ; but
will any one contend, taking into consideration the
constant influx into Europe of the precious metals,
during the whole period, and the vaster inundation of
a paper circulation (rendered, as I think, indispensable
by our debt), that corn is not, at this moment, far
' Mr. Brougham, Speech, 7th March, 1816.
'Sir F. Morton Eden's Hist, of the Poor, voh iii., Apppcndix.
302 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [§XIV.
cheaper than it was on the average of either period?
Again : the last year's average price, of which I am
in possession, is that of 1826, and it was the year in
which so much was said ahout dear and famine
prices ; it was nearly Is. 2d. per bushel : just a
century before, viz., in 1726, the price of the Win-
chester bushel was 6^. 6f/. ; still another hundred
years previously, viz., in 1626, it was 6,y. 2d. At the
moment I am writing, I believe the average price of
the same measure is not even so much \ Such is the
trifling advance, or, rather, the great real declension
on wheat. During the same period, the public reve-
nue had been increased one hundred-fold ; and the
poor-rates, falling principally on the cultivator, about
thirty-fold. Now, I ask, where is the labourer or
artisan, whatever his business, who, calculating from
the former period, would be content with a similar
advance on the established wages of his calling ? or
which are the servants, public or private, who w^ould
be gratified with a like increase ? Some of the former
were lately condoling one another on being very ill
paid ; but I plainly ask such, while they are legislating
on the proper protection of the farmers to such a
nicety, whether they would like to be remunerated
by a kind of corn-rent salary, calculated on the price
of wheat and the amount of the stipends of James
the First's reign } No fact upon earth is clearer than
that the real price of wheat has greatly lowered during
this long period ; nor is another cheering truth less
certain, that its consumption has, in the mean time, been
vastly extended, till at length it has become the bread
' December 1827.
§ XIV. J AND THEIR REMEDIES. 303
of tlie lower classes : — facts these, were there none
else, which ought to have overturned Mr. Malthus's
ratios long ago, and, indeed, placed them topsy-turvy.
(9.) Amongst the names that have given some
degree of sanction to the clamour concerning the
present prices of corn, I regret to observe there is one
which has always had, deservedly, great weight.
Whether the change of his opinions, so often and
so ably expressed, on the subject under discussion,
was in consequence of one of those sudden conversions
which are now far more common and contagious in the
political world than ever they were in the rehgious ;
or whether it was imposed upon a yielding intellect,
once so comprehensive and decisive, but weakened
and worn out in the service of his country, I know
not ; but it is due to my subject to state the astonish-
ing oversight into which he fell, on this point, in the
last stage of his distinguished career. In February,
1822, it was that his lordship (the Earl of Liverpool)
made his celebrated speech on the agricultural dis-
tresses of the country ; attributing them to causes
over which government had no control, and for which,
consequently, they had no remedy. He deeply de-
plored, however, the ruinous condition into which
the cultivators of the empire were plunged, attributing
it to the want of a market for their produce, and,
indeed, as has been before observed, to an over-
production of it ; expressing hopes of a gradual and
effectual amendment. Four years afterwards, and
only four, that is, in 1826, we hear his lordship
holding very different language, and, looking at the
protection of agriculture and its remuneration, he
304 IRELAND ; ITS EVILS, [§ XIV.
made use of an expression which, from other lips,
would have heen deemed highly injurious and inflam-
matory. But even he was not superior to the preva-
lent and pernicious practice of adopting a current
phrase ; which almost always supersedes the necessity
of an argument, and has often the effect of silencing
one: he applied the term *^^ famine-price " to the
subject ; which, if I recollect right, was repeated from
other high quarters, if not, indeed, suggested from
such : and, when this expression was dropped, equi-
valent ones were still used\ Now, what will the
candid reader suppose was the difference in the price
of the bushel of wheat, on the average of the six
months immediately preceding the first speech ; a
price which he had deplored so feelingly, as so far
from being a remuneration to the growers, that it
had occasioned the ruin of numbers of them ; and the
price of the last six months of the year 1826, when,
on the assumption of this " famine-price," so much
corn was introduced into the country ? Nearly, and
not quite, three farthings a bushel! This is hardly
credible, and I consequently subjoin the proofs*.
But, if the expression came in during the first six
months of that year (though it was only acted upon
in the second), the difference amounted to fourpence
three farthings. And, when it is recollected that the
first six months are of course those most remote
from the preceding harvest, and, consequently, re-
quiring a better price to indemnify the holder than
the last six months of the year ; practically speaking,
' Hansard, Pari. Deb., vol. xv. p. 1092.
^ Prices of the Quarter of Wheat on the " General Average
§ XIV. J
AND THEIR REMEDIES.
30j
the first half of the year was, in this instance, the
cheapest, notwithstanding the difference of fourpence.
In one sense, therefore, never was there a more
appropriate term hit upon than '^ famine-price ;" it
had a double and, indeed, universal application, and
equally well described what it had been declared, by
the same lips, to be, first to the growers, and now to
the consumers. If correct in the latter case, to what
which governs Importation," extracted from the London Gazette,
of the undermentioned dates : —
1821.
s.
d.
1826.
s. d.
August 4 .
. . 52
4
July 7 .
. 55 11
11 .
. 53
4
14 .
. 55 11
18 .
. 55
3
21 .
. 56 5
25 .
. 56
0
28 .
. 5G 10
Sept. 1 .
. 55
10
August 4 .
. 57 4
8 .
. 54
7
11 .
. 57 7
15 .
. 55
8
IS .
. 57 2
22 .
. 61
6
25 .
. 56 6
29 .
. 68
10
Sept. 1 .
. 55 8
October 6 .
. 70
7
18 .
. 55 8
13 .
. 64
7
15 .
. 56 3
20 .
. 61
4
22 .
. 55 11
27 .
. 58
4
29 .
. 55 0
Nov. 3 .
. 53
3
October 6 .
. 54 11
10 .
. 55
I
13 .
. 54 9
17 .
. 55
2
20 .
. 54 6
24 .
. 55
4
27 .
. 51 3
Dec. 1 .
. 53
11
Nov. 3 .
. 54 I
8 .
. 51
11
10 .
. 54 3
15 .
. 51
2
17 .
. 55 0
22 .
. 49
4
24 .
. 55 9
29 .
. 46
8
Dec. 1 .
. . 55 11
1822. Jan. 5 .
. 46
2
8 .
. 56 6
12 .
. 45
11
15 .
. 56 5
19
. 48
11
22 .
. 56 4
2G .
. 49
3
29 .
Average per Qua
. 55 6
1,433
3
1,450 4
Average per Qua
rter 55
n
ter 55 «)i
Per Win. bi
ishel 6
\ol
Per Win. bi
isht'l 6 Hi
306 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [§ ^^^'*
a glorious state and condition has our new policy
already conducted us ' !
It cannot, however, be disputed but that the real
price of wheat has been declining for centuries past,
notwithstanding its use has happily become so much
more general, even amongst the lowest classes of the
community^ than it was in former times.
(10.) But even supposing it were desirable still
further to bear down the prices which the grower at
present receives, with a view to permanently cheapen-
ing every thing amongst us^ including of course the
wages of labour, which is one of the avowed motives
for so doing, it is not quite clear that destroying the
home cultivators would answer that purpose. Look-
ing at the past experience of the country (and we can
have no safer guide), we think to the contrary. The
experiment of allowing foreign growers to glut our
markets, to the extinction of many of the home ones,
has been anciently tried : at first, indeed, it beat down
the prices to almost nothing, but afterwards invariably
heightened them, and sometimes into actual (not the-
* I am a.ware that much was said, and may be repeated, about
the remission of taxes in the interim. Was that remission, were it all
placed to the agricultural account, anything approaching in amount
to the deterioration which that interest had already suffered, while
the monied one had been as greatly on the advance ? But between
1822 and 1826, that remission, as it respected the agriculturists,
did not amount to a half per cent, on their produce, though the
proposition was to take off about thirty-three per cent, from their
protection, as compared with that of 1815 ; the value of that pro-
duce having, in the mean time, fallen so greatly. The tax upon
malt was not paid by the grower, but the consumer, as the govern-
ment often argued ; and that its partial repeal did little for the
former, is evident from the excise accounts. There was not so
much barley paid for, as malted in the year ensuing, as there had
occasionally been above thirty years before.
§ XrV.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 307
oretical) famine. But to look to more modern times.
In Queen Elizabeth's days, Lord Bacon informs us,
that " it drained much coin of the kingdom, to furnish
us with corn from foreign parts*;" and yet what did
this importation do for the country? Its ultimate
effect was, by thus discouraging and putting down the
home grower, to raise the price of grain so much,
that the latter part of her reign was almost a conti-
nued dearth. That great man's advice on the occasion
was thus expressed : " I may truly say to the English,
Go to the pismire, thou sluggard ^" In the succeeding
reign^ notwithstanding there was still not nearly half,
if much more than a third of the present population,
this system continued, to the great hindrance of inter-
nal industry, and the consequent damage of the public
interest. There was still a selfish faction that argued,
as at present, in favour of turning the country into a
sheep-walk ; asserting, as now, that England could not
sustain its people with bread ; or, rather, that it was
more profitable to be supplied by others, and, in spite of
such men as More, and Bacon, and Raleigh_, they pre-
vailed. From the former of these I have already quoted
at large ; the last, memorializing King James, states,
that " corn had in some years cost England two mil-
lions sterling'^;" and, speaking of such ruinous importa-
tions from foreigners^ he says, " it is to the dishonour
of the land that they should serve this famous king-
dom, WHICH God has so enabled within itself''."
He says, elsewhere, and how truly succeeding times
' Bacon's Works, vol. i. p. 454. ' Ibid. p. 462.
^ Raleigh's Works, vol. ii. p. 117, (Svo. 17.51.)
^ fhid.\o\. ii. p. 118.
X 2
308 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [§X1V.
have shown, that "all nations abound with corn';"
hence the interest and duty of each is manifest, to
increase the products of the earth as they become
necessary, and that by encouraging internal industry
instead of superseding it. As to the desideratum of
our modern school, he thus expresses himself: "If
corn is too cheap, the husbandman is undone, whom
we must provide for, for he is the staple man of
THE KINGDOM ^" An opiiiiou v/hicli we have been
attempting to prove is as true at the present moment,
as it was when he uttered it.
Supposing that we were to admit it to be true, in
theory, that a full protection to the British grower
has a tendency to raise the price ultimately, still it is
false in fact. This dispute may be easily decided.
Examine the matter from the period we have been
just adverting to (King James the First's reign), down
to the year 1670, when the first eifectual protection
was given to the British grower^; and again, from
that time through a still longer period, comprehend-
ing, together, the experience of above a century and
a half, and it will be seen that the "monopoly" of
their own market, by the British cultivators, had the
' D'Ewes, p. 674. ^ Ibid. p. 674.
^ It may not be unnecessary to state the nature and extent of
this protection. By the act of 22 C. II. ch. 18, the duty laid upon
imported wheat was this : —
When the price was 5ds. 4d. per quarter, 16s.
When not exceeding 80^. ditto, 8s.
When it exceeded 80s. ditto, 5s. 4d.
Our theorists may easily turn these sums into money of the present
day. In subsequent times, direct bounties were given upon corn
exported; a principle for which I do not contend, though without
conceding that, at the time, it probably operated as a national
advantage.
§ XIV.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 309
positive effect of lowering even the money-price of
grain, while that of every thing else, during the same
term^ had so greatly advanced. The dear times of
the late French wars one cannot reasonably appeal to,
in any of these comparisons, otherwise they would
most powerfully corroborate these facts ; the whole
period being (with a short exception) one of unlimited
importation, and often, indeed, of direct bounties
upon it. But in the course of the long period ad-
verted to above, the government of the country,
yielding at lengthy for a time, to a different policy,
considerably relaxed in its protection of internal in-
dustry : the consequences shall be expressed in the
forcible and perspicuous language of a minister of his
Majesty's present government : " During upwards of
one hundred years," says Mr. Huskisson, " up to the
year 1765, the import of foreign corn was restrained
by very high duties. What was the state of the
country during these one hundred years ? That, in
ordinary seasons, our own growth supplied a stock of
corn fully ample for our consumption ; — that, in
abundant seasons, we had some to spare, which we
exported; — that, in bad seasons, we felt no want, and
were under no apprehension ; — that the price of corn
seldom varied more than a few shillings per cpiarter ;
— that we had no years of inordinate gain to the
farmer, or of starvation to the consumer ; — that prices,
instead of rising from year to year, were gradually
(Hminishing ; — so that, at the end of this long pc^riod
of a century, during which we never imported foreign
corn, tliey were actually one-fifth lower than at the
beginning of it. Would to CJud that we had conti-
310 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [§ X.IV.
nued this salutary system ! But in 1765, it was un-
fortunately abandoned. What has been the result?
Precisely the reverse of the former system. Instead
of a steady supply, afforded at steady and moderate
prices, we have witnessed frequent and alarming
scarcities." But I must refer the reader, for a full
description of the consequences of this unhappy de-
parture from the true policy of the country, to the
whole of his admirable letter, and shall conclude in
his language : " we must go back to the principles of
our forefathers ; and, by reverting as much as possible
to their si/stem, we shall secure to ourselves and our
posterity all the benefits which they derived from it^."
To the reader, who may not be acquainted with the
precise consequences of this " unfortunate abandon-
ment," it may not be superfluous to state, that, with-
out selecting particular years, but taking, at once, the
prices ten years before and ten years after this event ;
the change in the policy of the country, by depressing
the security and the hopes, and consequently the
efforts of the British agriculturist, raised the price of
wheat nearly one half^, and that not by a gradual,
but by a marked and instantaneous advance^, which
* Rt. Hon. W. Huskisson's Letter on the Corn Laws, pp. 10, U.
^ 1755— 1764, 5s. 3d per bushel: 1765—1774, 7s.2c?. per busheL
^ On a question of such immense moment as the foregoing, it
would be a species of infatuation not to add to the experience of
our own, that of other nations, which, on a matter of universal
concernment, must, one way or the other, be equally conclusive.
This, in all the instances I have been hitherto able to appeal to,
fully confirms, and, indeed, dictates the preceding argument. One
example only shall, on this occasion, be adduced, and that of a
country of all others seemingly the best calculated to put the prin-
ciple, for which I am contending, to the severest test, being one
which had partly subsisted upon importation for ages, and had
been subject to distressing fluctuations in crops, to an extent little
§XIV.]
AND THEIR REMEDIES.
311
continued increasing till the better system was at
length restored.
(11.) Another standing argument in favour of a
constant admission of foreign grain is^ that its effect
would be the equalization of prices ; and indeed the
present legislative policy seems to be founded ex-
pressly upon that principle : and supposing it should
accompHsh that purpose, it would be difficult to jus-
tify the proposition on such a ground ; difficult, I
think, to defend it from being as flagrant an act of
known elsewhere ; and which, Mr. Malthus says, is " one of the
most barren and worst-supphed countries of Europe*." I mean
Sweden. But a different system has now been estabHshed.
" Since 1820," we are officially informed, " the duties upon
foreign grain have been so high as to be equivalent to a prohibition,
and no importation could take place." — The effect may be thus
described : " Formerly, Svveden was, in the best of years, obliged
to import from 100,000 to 200,000 quarters annually, wb,ereas
latterly — she could have exported. The excess has been converted
into spirits, to the great injury of the inhabitants t." The effects of
the alteration in the system will, however, be best seen in the fol-
lowing official statement of prices six years before, and (including
the year in which it took place) as many years afterwards. They
were as follow : —
Before Prohibition.
Sterlins^ Price
Year. per Quarter.
1814 ^4
181'J 24
1815 25
1817 29
1818 33
1819 28
At and after Prohibition.
Sterlin^^ Price
per Quarter.
, . .19
, . .16
. .18
. .16
. .15
Year.
IS 20
1821
1822
1823
1824
1825. .... .17
Will the advocates for a contrary policy give us as striking an
instance in favour of their argument, or indeed any single practical
illustration of it }
I said I would refer to one instance only ; but I am tempted to
add another ; one nearer home, and more obvious to our notice —
France : we are again informed that " the importation of foreign
grain, for the consumption of France, has been virtually prohibited
since the year 1819; exportation, however, being allowed :" and
* SiKtIi Edition, vol.ii. p. l9S.
t Iletiirii to all Accounts, Parliaujontary Paper. U. p. S.
312
IRELAND ; ITS EVILS,
[§ XIV.
unfairness as ever was meditated. The fluctuation in
the prices of grain (I mean the usual and ordinary
variations) is a natural result of the difference in the
crops, and answers a valuable and necessary end^ in
inducing us to husband our resources when they happen
to become deficient. But this proposal goes to deprive
the cultivator of the only remuneration which he can
expect^ when he has a partial failure in any of his
produce ; and this " equalization" is_, therefore, in
many cases, only another term for ruin^ as it regards
him : it is a proposition to throw the entire distress
upon those alone^ who^ in ordinary times, are the
least able to bear it, instead of lightening the pressure
by sharing it, in some sort, amongst the entire com-
munity; still protecting, however_, the poor from
absolute want, by means of our national charity, to
that " such is the actual state of the law." Take we then from
the official [document, which accompanies this information, the
prices of wheat throughout France, for the seven subsequent years,
with the last of which the statement closes, and the seven preced-
ing ones, and the following are the results, reduced to British
money and measure : — ■
Before Prohibition.
Sterling Price
Year. per Winchester Qr.
s. d.
1812. • 87 111
1813 57 10
1814 45 8|
1815 49 4
1816 62 6i
1817 92 7|
1818 63 li
459 \\
At and after Prohibition.
Year.
Sterling Price
per Winchester Qr.
3. d.
1819..
47
2|
1820..
. ..49
li
1821. .
45
61
1822..
39
7h
1823..
....44
10
1824..
42
61
1825..
40
s^
309
21*
44 2
65 7
These facts require no comment,
* Pari. Pciper?. No, 157 ; Grain^ Foieign Countries^ p. 13.
§ XIV.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 313
which none will deny that the farmer contributes
his full share. In a word, this notable expedient pro-
poses to render every season, as far as it can accom-
plish its purpose, alike disastrous to the cultivator.
A superabundant crop, of course, lowers his remune-
ration ; and he says, as of old, iiiopem me copia fecit;
and a failing one is to bring him no additional price :
and this is the policy that is proposed to be adopted
in regard to agriculture !
But I deny the assumption ; still appealing to ex-
perience. Again commencing with 1601 ; from
thence to 1670, the year in which, as previously ob-
served, effectual protection was afforded to agriculture,
the fluctuations in price were far greater and more
frequent than those which occurred afterwards ; ex-
cepting we carry our comparison from 1765 and
through the period of the revolutionary wars of
France; when, as already observed, importation was
almost unlimited, and the fluctuations were conse-
quently very great. But, on this part of the dispute,
at all events, decisive proofs are at hand. We are
surrounded by countries in which the import of grain
has been, practically speaking, altogether free and un-
restrained. In which of these have the fluctuations
been less than those in England during the periods in
which her agriculture has been strictly protected ? On
the contrary, even in the exporting countries, they
have been much more severe, including the descrip-
tions of grain principally consumed by the inhabitants,
and little exported ^ In Antwerp I find the variations
'See Returns relative to Foreign Corn, Paper 44; Dantzig,
No. 2.
314 IRELAND ; ITS EVILS, [§ XIV.
are as wide as between /2.10 and/ 11.27 per mudde;
and, even within the last ten years, as great as from
/3.00to/11.27^
Those who declaim against the monopoly, as they
call it, of the English market by Englishmen, a singu-
lar sort of complaint, are constantly accusing those
who advocate the cause of the latter, as being the
advocates of high prices, regardless of the conse-
quences. The accusation is injuriously false. They
are the advocates for that protection which nature
itself dictates, and which our peculiar circumstances
especially demand ; they are the advocates of a more
minute, perfect, and extended system of internal cul-
tivation, which they assert, appealing to past history
(which is as good authority as their prophecies), would
increase the supplies of the necessaries of life instead
of diminishing them ; lower their prices instead of
advancing them ; and be the sure means, as heretofore,
of conducting the country to permanent and increas-
ing plenty, prosperity, and happiness.
(12.) If the foregoing arguments should be retorted
on the advocates of the English growers, and it be
asked with an air of triumph, why they oppose the
constant introduction of foreign grain, since its effects,
according to their own showing, would not be to
lower its price, but rather to the contrary, — they have
this distinct and decisive answer, and let it be fully
and fairly met. It is because they would have the
price, whatever it be, to go into the pockets of their
own countrymen, from whence they well know it
would be distributed to the uttermost farthing through
' See Returns relative to Foreign Corn, p. 69.
§ XIV.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 315
every class of the community^ feeding and invigorating
all its several interests^ and promoting the prosperity
of the whole : but let the immense sums, which the
question assuredly involves, be passed to the serfs of
Poland or of Russia, or rather to their owners, and
they have yet to be convinced that its tithe would find
its way back again to its original possessors, excepting
in paper " statements and hypotheses, the value of
which individuals, as well as the nation at large, are
beginning to appreciate.
(13.) Some, I believe, have argued in favour of a
regular importation of foreign produce, from a con-
scientious conviction that a dependence upon some
other country or countries for part of our daily bread
is the best way to secure ourselves from scarcities.
This idea, however, it requires little consideration to
confute. Without the tuition of political economy,
we know that no nation or nations, any more than so
many individuals, will continue regularly to grow
without as regular a demand; and, therefore, supposing
we grow enough for ourselves at present, just so much
of our necessary supply as we should then take from
other agriculturists, we should no longer continue to
take from our own. The supply and demand would
very soon become very accurately adjusted ; that the
part of our supply, therefore, which would be furnished
from abroad (and it would then become an essential
part) should be more certain than it would have been,
if it had been furnished from our own, then abandoned,
fields, is impossible ; that it would be less so is cer-
tain. In case of a scarcity in the country or countries
accustomed to yield it (and these are, at least, as
316 IRELAND ; ITS EVILS, [§ XIV.
liable to such events as our own), it is quite obvious
they would supply themselves first; and on their situa-
tion would depend whether our usual supply should
be greatly diminished, or entirely withdrawn : whereas,
had we continued to be supported from our internal
resources, we should then have had the whole of what
nature produced, and the difficulties would have been
shared amongst us.
It is quite evident how a country, under such circum-
stances of internal scarcity, would act. They would not
then exchange their corn for our cottons. No govern-
ment would allow^ — no people endure it. It does not re-
quire the reasoning powers of a Locke to inform us, that
'^ things absolutely necessary for life must be had" and
retained, " at any rate, but things convenient will be
had only as they stand in preference with other con-
veniences \" Let those who think that a constant
* Locke, Considerations of the Lowering of Interest; Works,
vol. ii. p. 16. To give an historical illustration of this incontro-
vertible truth, Sweden formerly acted upon the idea, that to import
grain was to provide against scarcities ; which, notwithstanding
such supplies, were perpetually recurring. She had, however, a
severe lesson on the impolicy of this plan, and profited by it. "The
Swedes," says an author, who wrote about half a century ago,
" purchased considerable quantities of corn, till some years ago, a
prohibition of exportation" (in consequence of a scarcity at home)
*' stopped our supplying them in a time of need ; which was attended
with so great an effect, that from that time they set about the busi-
ness of cultivation with such vigour, that ever since they have
supplied themselves, and exported a small quantity."
Her exports have, since then, greatly increased, notwithstanding
a deplorably large consumption of grain in her distilleries. I can-
not help applying Mr. Malthus's doctrine to this country, to
which, indeed, he has appealed so much in his Essay, Are not the
ratios, of which he speaks, precisely reversed again, as it regards
Sweden, notwithstanding all his prognostications to the contrary ?
He affects to ridicule the government for " crying out for popula-
tion, population !" Population, however, has greatly increased,
and, with that increase, has augmented individual plenty and pros-
§ XIV.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 317
(lepcndcncc upon external supplies is the way to ward
off scarcities answer his argument, and they will then
oiilv have to reconcile their theory to historical flicts.
Nor must it be forgotten, in determining this point,
that the most striking variations in the seasons, and
consequently in the crops of Europe, are rarely partial,
but almost always general, if not universal.
(14.) But with respect to those accidental scarci-
ties, which are thus made the apology for recom-
mending a policy which would occasion a permanent
one, and has often done so, I have elsewhere, I think,
fully proved that, amongst the other incalculable
advantages of a large and growing population, may
be included that of diminishing the frequency and
severity of such calamities^ and perhaps of ultimately
causing them to cease altogether : the last supposition
is, I confess, the conclusion at which I have arrived,
after having given the best attention to the subject I
could. Certainly, historical facts favour this conclu-
sion ; and philosophy may thus expound it : varia-
tions in climate and seasons are, as far as we yet
know, the sole causes of variations in the produce of
land equally cultivated. And what is it that melio-
rates climate, and mitigates and equalizes the seasons,
but cultivation ^ ? Universal cultivation, therefore, is
parity in a still greater ratio. Sweden is now, therefore, an export-
ing country : it is thus that in every country, however circum-
stanced, Nature spreads a common feast for all that live ; a feast
Avhere there is " room enough and to spare !"
' " Let us remember that it is man himself who has in great
measure created these climates. France, (Tcrmany, and England,
not more than twenty centuries ago, resembled Canada and Chi-
nese Tartary ; countries situated, as well as our Europe, at a mean
distance between the equator and the pole." — (Malte-Brun Geog.
vol. i. p. 417.)
318 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [§ XIV.
not merely the means of rendering the different
countries more salubrious, — an advantage which has
been long apparent ; but it becomes the best, and
indeed the sufficient security which nature affords for
an equal, as well as an abundant produce. Here
again the experience of mankind comes in aid of our
argument, which, if true, proves that to throw a
portion of our lands out of cultivation would be to
render the rest less certainly productive : the converse
of this position is clearly the fact. But I shall not
again enter upon this subject further; but sum up
what I have said on this part of the argument in the
words of one who, it will be generally admitted,
understood the real interests of his country, and who
anxiously turned his comprehensive mind to the con-
sideration of this particular subject, at a very trying
time in relation to it : ^' The less," said Mr. Pitt, " we
WERE TO DEPEND UPON OTHER NATIONS FOR OUR SUP-
PLY, THE LESS WE HAVE TO APPREHEND ^" Or, tO ex-
press the same truth in the language of a statesman
of the present day, Mr. Huskisson, — " There is no
effectual security, either in peace or war, against the
frequent return of scarcity, approaching to starvation,
but in maintaining ourselves, habitually, independent
OF foreign supply^."
(15.) But here, again, it is quite necessary that
the advocates of internal industry should not be inis-
» Pitt's Speech, 4th December, 1802.
" Right Honourable William Huskisson's Letter on the Corn
Laws. He observes — " The habitually importing country, which,
even in a good season, depends on the aid of foreign corn — de-
prived of that aid in a year of scarcity, is driven to distress border-
ing upon famine."
§ XIV.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 319
understood; misrepresented they must expect to be.
If an actual scarcity should occur in the country,
happily an event of no common occurrence at pre-
sent, resort instantly to foreign supplies ; as the sin-
gle family did, that possessed a region which after-
wards supported millions in uninterrupted plenty, go
down to Egypt, and take your money in your sacks.
But let an honest and intrepid ministry, who are
honoured and remunerated for their responsibility,
determine in this case ; without consulting momen-
tary popularity, let them attend to the present wants,
and yet secure the permanent interests of the country.
But common sense surely instructs us to believe that
in this, as in all other cases whatsoever, to resort to
an expedient in common, is to render it wholly inef-
ficacious, if the real emergency should unhappily
arise.
(16.) But it is proper to notice one or two pleas
of a nature different to the foregoing, which are
usually urged in behalf of a free trade in corn. The
first of these, however, it is almost hopeless to con-
tend with, as it is quite insensible to facts, otherwise
it would have been silenced long since. It is, that
the importation from foreign countries would neces-
sarily be so small, even in an unrestricted trade, that
it would make little impression upon the home mar-
ket. This idea rests upon two grand mistakes : first,
that of estimating, on some rude guess, the whole
quantity grown at present by foreigners for exporta-
tion, which, we are told, is so trifling as not to be
able materially to affect the markets of this country.
I am not anxious to contradict this ; for, as almost all
320 IRELAND ; ITS EVILS, [§ XIV.
countries stupidly enough persist in feeding themselves,
since God has given them the means of so doing, it is
not very likely that others should grow more than they
want, and what they have no prospect of disposing
of. But the question is, what would be the amount of
their supply if they were allowed free access to our
markets ? I contend that it would equal the demand'
whatever that might be. A single province of one
of these countries which is kindly bent upon feeding
us, would suffice, as that honest and intelligent tra-
veller^ Bell, of Autermony, says, to sustain all. Eng-
land_, does he say? All Europe M But we are told
that the land lying on the borders of rivers is pretty
much cultivated already; a fact on which a ministerial
envoy has dwelt very emphatically : but to place the
protection of British industry upon such a basis as
this is a little too gross. Pray, it may be asked,
with such an irresistible motive as a constant and
profitable market, which would provide adequate
means for such undertakings, would not internal
communications be made and multiplied; and even
till then, could not the lands in the interior of the dif-
ferent countries be devoted to the sustentation of the
inhabitants, and those on the banks of these rivers
be exclusively dedicated to our supply ? — and would
not this naturally and certainly be the case r I have
before me an account of the British merchandise said
to steal into Germany through the ramifications of the
Elbe ; and could not German produce as easily steal
out through similar apertures ? The whole of this
argument is idle in the extreme. The sure and con-
' Bell, Travels, vol. ii. p. 159.
§ XIV.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 321
stant operation of adequate causes v/ould bring into
cultivation just so much of the rich^ but hitherto
uncultivated regions of the north of Europe^ as Eng-
land, neglecting her own cultivators, might require ;
she would only be limited in the supplies by her
means of purchasing. The population on the square
mile, in these fertile' corn-growing countries, hardly
any of which are wheat-eaters, is of itself a sufficient
reply to all these singular representations ; but to rest
the vital interest of the empire upon a mere ipse
dixit, is rather too much, especially after our experi-
ence on this head. Again : many not unfriendly to
agriculture would hazard its interests, from the mis-
conceptions long set afloat, respecting the supposed
impossibility of transporting to this country sufficient
quantities of foreign produce, to interfere materially
with the home market. This is a great, though a
common error, and requires the most direct confuta-
tion. Even Adam Smith fell into it, estimating the
average quantity of corn annually imported at only a
five hundred and seventy- first part of the consump-
tion, adding, that, under a system of free trade, even
that quantity would diminish; so that the farmers
could have nothing to fear. The fallacy of this
supposition has been long exposed; nevertheless the
argument survives. In the last year in which our
ports were open, namely, in 1818, and, I think,
not throughout the whole year, instead of 23,728
(Adam Smith's average quantity), there were 4,738,521
quarters imported, or about two hundred times as
much, and nearly a fifth of the consumption of the
people of the whole kingdom, if we are to credit our
Y
322 IRELAND ; ITS EVILS, [§ XIV.
Statistical authorities ^ ; and a great part of this quan-
tity was imported without previous preparation on
the part of the foreign growers for the British mar-
ket. I ask the most determined supporters of a free
tfade in corn, what would be the limits of the supply,
were the trade thrown open to foreigners ? The
limits of our ability to purchase and to pay. The
foreign competitor would inevitably beat down the
British grower in price, and overwhelm him with
quantity.
But to the assurances of Adam Smith on the sub-
ject of importation, now succeed those of Mr. Jacob.
The former, however, having totally failed, it is not
surprising that the agricultural public place as little
reliance upon the latter. As far as I have examined
and can understand this gentleman's report, which,
I confess, gave me much surprise, after the perusal
of his former able and interesting works, I think its
intention is to show that British agriculture need fear
nothing from competition^, in consequence of the
small and diminishing supplies likely to be derived
from abroad, which I understand him to estimate at
not beyond ten or twelve days' consumption at the
utmost^. His report is dated February 1826. Yet,
with this very document in his possession, I find Mr.
Canning stating, in his place in parliament, in March
1827, that the extraordinary influx of foreign corn,
even in three months, in 1818-1819, had contributed
to depress the prices in so " extraordinary a degree,*'
• Colquhoun, Treatise of the Wealth, Power, &c. of the British
Eiijpire, p. 66.
-Jacob, Report, pp. 12, 52, &c.
§XIV.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 323
that " the effect of these three months' importations
was felt in the depreciation of the market for three
succeeding years'!" and was the occasion, as Lord
Liverpool asserted^ of the '' ruin of hundreds ^"
That these statements and representations can he
reconciled, is impossible ; and there is no difficulty
to know which ought to be received. The subject,
unfortunately^ is not a matter of argument, but of
experience ; the agricultural interest has not reco-
vered to this hour the injury it then sustained, though
fresh attacks are meditated upon it. If it be said that
the report to which I have referred only compre-
hended a particular district of Europe ; still it must
have been selected as the most important and govern-
ing part, otherwise the whole thing would degenerate
into an intentional juggle : and what would then be-
come of the ingenuousness of those who founded
upon it those arguments which they made decisive of
the general question, and who, indeed, originated the
inquiry for that purpose? But I acquit those en-
gaged from all such suspicions, by asserting its general
bearing on the subject ; and here again I shall drop
mere argument and opinion, and conclude this part
of the discussion by leaving in the reader's recollec-
tion recorded facts. In part of the year 1817, exclu-
sively of the imports from Irc^land, which, however,
are most essentially connected with the subject, there
were imported 1,801,230 quarters of grain ; and in
part of 1818, 3,530,670 quarters, and an immense
and increasing quantity in the two first months of
' Hansard, Pari. Debates, vol. xvi. p. 766.
^ Ibid.soX.w. p. 1368.
Y 2
324 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [§ XIV
1819, till the ports became closed. If such are the
consequences of the accidental opening of an uncer-
tain market^ what would they be were it constantly
free ? The question has been already answered.
(17.) Nor is the effect of importation on the inte-
rest thus interfered with, one which can be estimated
by a simple arithmetical calculation. It is perfectly
well known, in every other market, that an over-supply
inevitably occasions a far more than corresponding
decline in price ; one, indeed, not easily reducible to
calculation^ but not the less clearly understood. But,
on this important point, I will avail myself of the
language of a late work, which, as it appears to me,
cannot be suspected of leaning too much to existing
laws and privileges. '^ When it is considered that
a comparatively very trifling supply beyond demimd
produces a very disproportionate effect upon the value
of the aggregate quantity, it is certainly a duty incum-
bent on legislation to pause, ere_, for the sake of expe-
riment, they expose the several interests of the
country to so extensive a change, as a comparatively
trifling additional supply of corn is liable to occasion :
that is, assuming forty as the quantity, and 240 as the
value of the supply adequate to the demand, an
increase of one has a tendency not merely to affect
the value of the aggregate supply in its proportionate
ratio of six_, but of twelve ; an increase of two, to the
extent of thirty ; and, of three, to the probable extent
of eighty or one hundred. Consider, therefore, the
produce of forty millions of acres of land (the quantity,
or thereabouts, in a productive state in Great Britain)
sufficient to yield an adequate supply ; and 240 mil-
§ XIV. J AND THEIR REMEDIES. 325
lions per annum^ its aggregate value ; the importation
of one, or two, or three millions of acres of a foreign
soil must inevitably lead to one or the other of the
two following results, namely, either the supplanting
of the cultivation of a corresponding extent of soil at
home, or a derangement in the value, in the propor-
tion just previously exhibited : and then, as the money
value of the produce of the soil has a necessary ten-
dency to govern the money value of all other produc-
tions, the depreciation extends through all the pro-
ductive classes, whilst all those who subsist on the
state taxes, to the extent of ^fi* 52,000,000^ — on a rent-
tax of ,£40,000,000^ — and on mortgages, and on other
fixed money incomes, to the extent of ten or fifteen
millions per annum more, are all benefited in a ratio
proportionate to the depreciation sustained by the
productive classes. The progress, therefore, of the
effect of an importation of corn beyond the demand
for immediate consumption, is first to depreciate the
money value, at the expense of the occupier of the
land, to the extent of the depreciation, depending
mainly on the extent of the importation : the effect
on the depreciation on the occupiers of the land im-
mediately manifests itself to the labourer, and all
that class of handicrafts and tradesmen more imme-
diately dependent upon the occupiers and labourers of
the soil ; and it is not till exhaustion and degradation
pervade the whole of this portion of the community,
that the rent-tax, or, in other words, the landed pro-
prietor will be materially aflected by the measure of
importation \"
' Slutistical lliustiatiuns, Disciuisitioii, &c, pp. xix., xx.
326 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [^ XIV.
Such are the views and calculations of these writers ;
and it may be added, that computations on a similar
principle have been constantly made, since Davenant's
time to the present ^ It has been always known
that a deficient supply enhances prices far beyond a
mere arithmetic proportion ; and it is as obviously^
though not so alarmingly, true, that an excessive one
has, inversely, a similar effect.
I copy a passage, from the same work, as to the
effects of this measure on our interests, externally
considered ; some connected with which, it is allowed,
may be individually benefited, as Locke had observed
long ago : " But," it is added, " to use the pedantic
language of the pseudo race of political philosophers^
the benefit on an external interest is only arithmetical,
whilst the derangement which it is likely to occasion
(as previously shown), on the internal interests of the
country, is geometrical. But say the advocates for
importation and free trade, let the intercourse be
free, and the thing will find its own level, and regu-
late itself. No doubt : let famine and its concomitant
pestilence be free, and it will find its own level, and
regulate itself. Had this doctrine been adheied to in
Ireland, in 1822, Ireland might probably have found
its own level, and regulated itself ere this. But
further, say the advocates for importation and free
tradcy the advantages to be derived from an external
trade in corn would produce such an internal excite-
ment, by the increased remuneration for manufac-
turing labour, as to prevent that sort of depreciation
and derangement here previously laid down. And was
* Davenant, Works, vol. ii. p. 224.
§ XIV.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 327
the power of supply of natural and of manufactured
(or artificial) productions equals the position would
deserve investigation. But, whilst the supply of one,
in a comparative sense, may be considered limited,
and the other infinite, the only tendency of an unre-
strained intercourse is to increase the supply of the
artificial productions, until they lead to such an ex-
haustion of the physical, and degradation of the moral
character of society, as to threaten the entire annihi-
lation of all social order \"
(18.) The preceding forcible remarks have, in
great measure, rendered it unnecessary for me to
notice one grand argument in favour of importation,
which is perpetually urged, and without which, indeed,
the proposition would be a barefaced attempt to
enrich a few at the expense of the increasing poverty
and certain ruin of the country at large. It is this,
that the measure would greatly increase, or, at any
rate, secure our internal industry, by augmenting to
an equal extent our foreign trade. Passing over the
deep distress, and, indeed, the utter ruin which the
measure would occasion to thousands in the transition,
when those interests which had grown up and long
flourished under a contrary system, would have to
be at once trampled down and destroyed (considera-
tions with which political economy never troubles
itself) ; let us examine its pretensions on its own
grounds. In the first place_, it is not true, as far as
arithmetic is concerned. Those countries from which
wc have received, and, on such a system, should
again receive our principal supplies, I mean those to
" Statistical lllustiatious, Disquisition, &c. p. xx.
328 IRELAND ; ITS EVILS, [§ XIV.
whicli Mr. Jacob has directed our particular atten-
tion_, are not the countries which have been the fore-
most to encourage our internal industry in return ;
on the contrary, they have been amongst the last and
most backward so to do. And again^ those years in
which we have made the largest importations indi-
cate very imperfectly that we should have any cor-
responding increase in the demand for the products
of our internal industry, much less that the money
account, and, what is of greater moment still, the
labour account would be balanced, in such momentous
transactions. We have seen Mr. Canning's state-
ment of the enormous importations terminating in
February 1819 ; what effect had these on our export
trade ? was it such as to compensate the putting out
of employment^ and pauperising or starving thou-
sands of British labourers ? There was, on the con-
trary, a falling-off of many millions in its amount,
compared with any year since the peace ; and^ com-
pared with 1815, of between twelve and thirteen
millions, though the last-named year was one in
which the ports were strictly closed, and less corn
had come into the country than any year, save one,
for the preceding three- and-twenty years.
(19.) But supposing we were to concede that the
countries from which we should import (and the argu-
ment has no possible application to any others) would
take our manufactures to an equal amount in value ;
more they could not do — and it is far from clear,
looking either at the past or the present times, that
they would do that : the policy of the question is
instantly decided, but in a very different manner to
§ XIV.] AND THEIK REMEDIES. 329
what its advocates either do, or affect to_, believe.
The very reasons which might have been vahd in
favour of such an exchange in preceding times, the
force of circumstances has totally changed, and con-
verted them into insuperable obstacles against any
such policy at present. I shall state the chief of these,
and beg the reader's most serious consideration of
them.
To produce a given value in agricultural products,
and corn above all the rest_, requires at present a far
greater number of hands than to produce the same
value, on the general average, in manufactured articles.
If this were ever a matter of doubt, it no longer
remains so, since the introduction and increase of
machinery to so vast an extent has taken place,
which has abridged human labour in the fabrication
of the same goods, in a proportion that would be in-
credible, had it not been frequently calculated : while
in agriculture (happily, I think, for mankind) there
have been few inventions for ^' shortening human
labour," of great practical moment, since the days of
Triptolemus. But even before these recent mecha-
nical discoveries had been generally introduced, Adam
Smith said, '•^ no equal capital puts into motion a
greater quantity of productive labour than that of the
farmer ;" or, in other words, employs and rewards
more human beings. What would he have said now?
To exchange, therefore, our manufactured goods, espe-
cially as at present fabricated, for the agricultural
products of another country, to the same amount
(and that is all, I repeat, that the advocates of this free
* Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations, b. ii. ch. b.
330 IRELAND ; ITS EVILS, [§ XIV.
trade can or do hold forth), is neither more nor less
than to exchange the labour of the few for the
labour of the many, and that at a time when the
general outcry is, that " the market of labour" is over-
stocked already, when a proportion of our people,
unhappily too great, want employment, and when
human beings are beginning to be pronounced re-
dundant. The proposition has long been partially
entertained and acted upon, and so far we have seen
its consequences ; accede to it fully, and the catas-
trophe of the country is at hand.
But it is singular enough, that, even were the con-
verse of this position true, the argument in favour of
internal cultivation is strengthened. Were it con-
ceded that the same value in agriculture is raised by
fewer hands than in manufactures, surrounded as we
are by so many millions of uncultivated acres, what
would the proposition of supplanting British cul-
tivation then imply, but the exchange of that la-
bour which is most profitable for that which is least
so ? In every point of view, therefore, the idea of
being fed from abroad, is as impolitic as Nature meant
it to be impracticable. Were we guided by interest
only, we could not hesitate: '* Of all the ways," says
Adam Smith, '^ in which capital can be employed,
agriculture is by far the most advantageous to the
society \"
(20.) But to return. If we should lose so vastly by
the proposed exchange, in regard to the quantity of
labour employed, we should suffer infinitely more in
regard to the quality of the labour thus thoughtlessly
* Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations, b. ii, ch. 5.
§ XIV.J AND THEIR REMEDIES. 331
bartered. We should exchange, in very many cases,
labour in its very nature essential, for that which is
often superfluous ; — constant, for that which is fluc-
tuating;— permanent, for that which is uncertain; —
productive, for that which is not seldom unprofitable ;
— healthful and moral_, for that which is injurious and
demoralizing ; and above all, and to a very alarming
and increasing extent, the labour of man for the
labour of machines.
Such is the Glaucus bargain which our political
economists are urging the country to conclude, as
soon as possible. A few individuals, it is not meant
to be denied_, would be gainers ; — a few floating capi-
talists and foreign traders, — political swallows, who
could follow the summer of prosperity through the
earth, and who, perhaps, as '^ citizens of the world^"
would feel little regret in so doing : but those whose
fate and fortunes are united to their country, and
whose hearts are as indissolubly attached to it, would
remain to feel the consequences, and feel them in their
posterity to the remotest generations ; when all that
would be preserved to them, worth cherishing, would
be the remembrance of those days of British great-
ness and glory, which would then have set for ever.
(21.) Hitherto^ in this hasty apology for British
husbandry, a defensive line of argument has been
principally pursued; and before it is concluded, and
a few strong reasons, of a more positive nature, are
adduced in the same cause, I will attempt to show
that the main reason advanced in favour of the pro-
posed revolution^ in our system of national industry,
is founded in delusion, and is at utter variance with
332 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [§ XIV.
the nature, as well as the history of the hnman race.
It is, that cheap living is necessary to support manu-
factures and commerce. Even were this position
true, it is not impossible but that the nation might
buy the gold too dear which would thus find its way
into the pockets of a few ; such as those_, of whom
Locke observes, that " they may get by a trade that
makes a nation poor^'* Let us, however, attend to
this fundamental axiom of the free-trade system.
Reasoning, a 'priori, it is not at all plain that cheap
prices would encourage industry ; the presumption is,
indeed, directly to the contrary — that they would pro-
bably be the means of relaxing that necessity, which
has been elsewhere shown to be the mainspring of all
human prosperity^. No foreign trade can either be
commenced or supported without an internal one ;
and the most extended commerce and manufacture
can only rest upon the solid basis of internal industry
and wealth. Lord Bacon has therefore remarked,
that "home trade is the foundation of foreign ;" and
that agriculture is the foundation of home trade, I
think, none will contest. But mere reasonings upon
any subject, concerning which a direct appeal to deci-
sive facts may be made, are idle and absurd. Let us,
then, examine whether trade, or rather foreign trade,
has ever been founded upon cheap living ; and with-
out tracing the rise and progress of commerce in mo-
^ Locke, Considerations on Lowering of Interest ; Works, p. 27.
^ Sir William Temple (applying, I think, the observation to the
Dutch, whose industry he attributes to their necessities) : " Men
naturally prefer ease before labour, and will not take pains, if they
can live idle."—" Men," says Dr. Franklin, " do not work for
pleasure, but generally from necessity."
§XIV.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 333
dern times, till it loft, in great measure, the southern
parts of Europe, let us limit the inquiry to its later
history_, (luring whieh it has made sueh gigantic
strides. Where did it first flourish the most exten-
sively, since its revival? In Holland, certainly. Sup-
ported and fostered by cheap living? No man will so
far expose his ignorance as to assert this; or deny
that the period of the greatest relative superiority of
the United Provinces, in this respect, to all the world,
was when they were, beyond all comparison^ the
dearest country in it\ Holland, at that period, fed far
dearer than England; now, wheat is there little more
than a third of the price here. But as, in the former
country, while provisions have declined in price, trade
has declined with them ; so, in the latter, trade has
advanced with the improvement in the price of food.
England has now assumed the first rank as a great
manufacturing and commercial nation; and at what
period was it from whence its unrivalled career may
be fairly dated ? From the very time when its inter-
nal industry, its agriculture, was effectually guarded
and supported : from thence, to the present time, it
has gone on, extending its commerce and accumulat-
ing its capital, not by the extinction of cultivation,
but by fostering it. We are become, it is true, the
dearest country in Europe ; but the very same causes
' PiifFendorf says of Holland, " Every thing is very dear;" and
again, " All sorts of victuals are taxed and sold at an excessive
rate." — (History of Europe, p. 268.)
Andrew Yarrenton, in his England's Improvement, says, '* All
people that know anything of Holland know that the people eat
dear andpoi/ great taxes," (p. 7.) See, likewise, SirWm. Temple,
Sir William Petty, Mr. Locke, Mr. Ray, and odiers, on this sub-
ject.
334 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [§XIV.
have rendered us the most industrious, and the most
successful.
(22.) So stands the argument in reference to the
past^ and it most exactly coincides with the present
state of the question. If we ask those who speak so
much about the high price of provisions, as being fatal
to our foreign trade, from whose competition it is that
they represent our trade as standing in the greatest
danger; will they point to the serfs of Russia, the ge-
sindel of Germany, or even to the citizens of America?
The forges of Tula would expire to-morrow, were it
not for the inhibitory system of the Russian govern-
ment; and the rival manufactories of the United
States disappear as suddenly, were their protecting
duties withdrawn. It is from France we have most
to apprehend, if we have to fear for our foreign trade
at all ; — France, which feeds the dearest, with the ex-
ception of England, of any manufacturing nation of
Europe ^
But strange is it, that, with our present vaunted
superiority from machinery (not to mention capital,
which is now regarded as almost omnipotent), the
argument for low prices is renewed with greater
warmth than ever, and is principally urged by those
who are attempting, as much as in them lies, to render
manual labour unnecessary, and have partly succeeded
in so doing. The price of coal has far more to do
' At the time I am writing, I perceive the difference in the price
of wheat is less than three per cent.; (in France 22fr. 2c. ; in
London, 22 fr. 68 c.) The period, I presume, is peculiar, as the
diflPerence is usually much greater. But for several years past
wheat has only been about one-fourth lower, on the average, than
here ; and other grain, the general food there, still nearer our prices.
§ XIV.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 335
with the argument of such, than the price of corn ;
hut it is not the price of either that governs the
question.
(23.) Nothing is more surprising than the unfairness,
otherwise ignorance, with which this suhject is usually
treated. There are certainly some branches of in-
dustry in which other nations have those natural
advantages over us that render it improbable that we
shall ever be able to supplant their labours in those
particular cases ; nor can we reasonably desire that
it should be otherwise. But as it respects our leading
and staple manufactures^ I fearlessly assert, that we
are not contending with the low living, but with the
high duties of foreign countries, — duties which will
unquestionably be increased as our goods continue to
cheapen, as the world cannot allow its industry to be
entirely paralyzed in favour of our steam-looms, which
would, if duly patronized, supply "the great globe
itself, and all that it inherits." On the contrary, para-
doxical as it may sound, it is not the dearness of our
manufactured goods, but their inordinate cheapness^
that has rendered foreign countries less disposed to
allow them entrance ; it has naturally roused their
jealousy, and rendered it imperative upon them to de-
fend their own labour : and, finally, where there is a
free market, I appeal to all late experience^ whether
it is the competition of foreigners that is to be the
most dreaded and deplored, or that of our own manu- .
facturers and merchants, who continue to glut, and
consequently injure, every free market to which they
have access, by a superabundant and inordinate supply.
(24.) The history of this outcry against high prices
336 IRELAND; ITS EVILS^ [§ XIV.
is singular. It commenced at the time when agricul-
ture was protected and was beginning to prosper ; and
since which period bread has been, relatively speakings
constantly lowering. From that memorable period
our manufactures and commerce took a start, and
down to the present days (and the period has been
extended enough to afford the fullest experience) it is
a matter of history that they have extended with a
rapidity of which there has been, probably, no previous
example. But, during all this time, as it respects
that interest, '*^ the cry has been still the same" — "We
are injured, we shall be ruined by the high price
of provisions, compared with other countries, our
rivals ^ let the government, to save us, withdraw its
' A copious collection of proofs of the universal prevalence of
these complaints might be given ; a very few, however, shall suffice
as mere specimens.
In 1677, Andrew Yarrenton, in his then popular work (England's
Improvement), says of the woollen trade, " Their (the foreigners)
making cloth of cheap wool, and cheap victuals, will outdo us, and
undo us too, if not timely prevented," p. 20.
" No news but the old news, a bad trade," p. 97.
The same author said, just a hundred and fifty years ago, what I
will venture to say has been asserted every year since : " The
coarse cloth trade is quite spoiled by the German manufactures,"
p. no.
Fifty years afterwards, we find that there were several other
countries ; " The French, in particular, supplanting Britain in many
markets abroad." — (Dobbs, Essay on Trade, p. 7, 1729.)
Sir Matthew Decker is quite copious on this subject, and has
now become too popular a writer with our economists to render it
necessary for me to quote him.
Nearly half a century after the last date, we perceive that it had
been actually calculated that foreigners could carry on most
branches of trade twenty-five per cent, cheaper than we could —
" owing to the dearness of all the necessaries of life, for many years
past." — (Present State of Great Britain, Pref., parti., page 6, &c.)
It is not necessary to multiply these quotations ; they abound in all
books upon the subject of trade, and in all representations and
petitions upon it : it is still less needful to bring down the proofs to
the present period, which the reader's recollection can fully supply.
§ XIV.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 337
patronage from agriculture I" At first the withdrawal
of the bounties on that interest was only required.
But the spirit survives^ and now demands the destruc-
tion of the not very adequate protection which it
still enjoys. Such, I say, have been the complaints
during the very period in which British commerce was
all the while rising to an unexampled pitch of great-
ness and prosperity, which was doubtless owing in
a great measure to the wisdom of the course the
country so long pursued, and which nothing will
endanger or destroy, but an opposite policy. One
advantage has certainly accrued from the continued
agitation of this subject, if we know how to avail our-
selves of it : it has directed to it the attention, and
drawn forth the deliberate judgment upon it, of some
of the ablest and most practical men that have ever
lived in this or any other country ; and with the views
of a few only of these, I will illustrate the argument
touching the patronage which low prices would be
likely to confer on trade and commerce.
Locke observes, that the frugality and industry of
the Dutch, and consequently their prosperity, was
attributable to the high price of provisions amongst
them ; and hence, " they could buy our rape-seed,
make it into oil, and sell it cheaper than we could \"
The celebrated Ray attributes their prosperity to the
same cause, " the dearness of provisions enforcing
general industry ^"
Sir William Temple, who had the instructive lesson
which that people held forth to all Europe so long
' Locke, Considerations on the lowering of Interest, p. 16,
* Ivay, Observations on a Joumi v, &c. p. 51.
Z
•338 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [^XIV.
before his cyes^ has^, amongst many other remarks to
the same effect_, these words : " If we talk of indus-
try, we are still as much to seek what it is that makes
people industrious in one country, and idle in another.
I conceive the true original and grounds of trade to
be, great multitudes of people crowded into a small
compass of land, whereby all things necessary to life
become dear\" The same author, speaking of Ire-
land, says, '^ in order to advance trade, provisions
must be rendered so dear as to enforce general
industry ^."
^' The reason," says an intelligent author of a later
period, and an enlightened advocate of trade, ^^ why
commerce seldom flourishes in a fertile country is,
because, land there being of small value, provisions
are cheap and plentiful ^."
" It is a certain fact," says another writer, '* that ma-
nufactures never flourished in countries where bread^
and consequently other provisions are very cheap'*."
To such authorities as these might be added, were
it necessary, the names of Sir William Petty *, Sir
Joshua Child ^, Gee'^, and many others^, who wrote
on the most important topics connected with our
national policy. I shall, however, only add two others ;
and first, Dr. Franklin, whose sagacity on such
' Sir William Temple, Works, vol. i. p. 60 (folio edit.)
* Ibid. vol. i. p. 114. It is somewhat singular that a later writer
upon Ireland observes, that " the linen manufacture never flourishes
when oatmeal is cheap : the greatest exports of linen are when it
is dearest," p. 101.
^ Vindication of Commerce and the Arts, p. 35.
* Farmer's Letters, p. 3(3. ^ Petty, Tracts, p. 240.
^ Child, Essay on Trade, pref. xi., p. 17, &c.
' Gee, On the Trade, &c. p. 17.
•* Yarrenton, England's Improvement, p. .'53,
§XIV.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 339
matters, few, I think, will dispute. '^ Cheapness of
provisions," says he, '^ makes the common people
idle, and less work is done^" And lastly, Malte-
Brun makes this striking remark^ in his elaborate
geographical work : ''The facility with which food is
procured, obstructs the growth of industry and the
arts^"
(25.) But these last quotations remind me of what I
should have regretted to have forgotten. We must
do justice ; the advocates of low prices, or, in other
words, of unlimited importation, have no intention
whatever of thus interfering with the necessity
of industry in the lower orders. As a subject of de-
clamation, low prices are brought forward promi-
nently enough ; but when we look for their expla-
nation in the '^ science of political economy," the mask
of superior humanity falls off, and cheap prices are
contended for in order that low wages may be en-
forced : so that no good whatever would result to the
labourers of the kingdom expecting what is promised
in their hypothesis as a future contingency of their
system ; a prophecy which experience has again con-
tradicted. Cheap places, in all fully settled countries,
have been hitherto those in which the working poor
have been the most degraded and depressed ; and
cheap times those in which they have been the most
wretched. These facts, of such paramount impor-
tance, if the question is to be placed on the basis of
humanity, have been constantly asserted, and I believe
never disputed by those of our best writers who
' Dr. Fnmklln, Works, vol. ii. p. 166.
^ Mnltp-Bnm. Coog-. b. xxiii. p. 60-2.
7 2
340 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [§XIV.
have paid the closest attention to the subject, and
who were equally well qualified to judge by their intel-
ligence and humanity^ ; and 1 shall only confirm my
appeal to such by one more modern observer, who, in
the new world as well as the old, seems to have paid
particular attention to the condition of the working
classes, I mean M. Simond: he comes to this con-
clusion ; " the low relative price of food is disadvan-
tageous to the poor'^."
To show how slightly the contemplated lowering of
the agricultural values of the country would aifect the
cost of goods on the general average, as now manu-
factured, I had entered into some rather minute cal-
culations ; but they are rendered unnecessary, as well as
most of my preceding arguments, by the view of the
subject which immediately follows.
Granting all that is asserted, and to its fullest ex-
tent, by those who contend that our manufactures only
continue to exist and prosper upon a principle of
competition, into which the price of food enters so
deeply, let us see to what their own doctrine leads.
The truer it is, the more disastrous and fatal must
be its consequences.
If our foreign trade can only prosper by enabling
our workmen to live as cheap, it will follow as inevi-
tably, that it can only continue to do so, by necessi-
tating them to live as low as their foreign rivals.
And the latter necessity is, on any such principle,
* See Sir J. Child's Essay on Trade, pref. xi. p. 17, &c. Sir
William Davenant's Ways and Means, p. 125. Yarrenton's Eng-
land Improved, p. 53. Dr. Franklin, Essays, vol. ii. p. 160, &c.
2 Simond, Travels, &c. p. 388.
§ XIV.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 341
unhappily far more urgent than the former, inasmuch
as the difference in the nature and quahty of the food
of Englishmen, compared with that of these foreign
competitors, is far greater than the difference in its
price. Let a Frenchman and an Englishman, for in-
stance, each preserving their respective habits of life,
supply themselves at the same market prices ; and the
former, contenting himself principally with a vegetable
diet, will subsist on less than half the sum which the
latter must expend, to preserve in like manner his ac-
customed comforts. The difference becomes, perhaps,
still more striking, if the comparison be extended to
the other branches of their expenditure, such as their
clothes, furniture, and habitations. For the truth of
this statement, I may appeal to all who may have
entered their respective dwellings.
If, then, it be necessary, in order to promote or se-
cure our foreign trade, that our manufacturers should
feed as cheap as the continental ones, I say it is at
least twice as necessary that they should live as poor ;
and then, since, after all, the lower ranks are the great
consumers as well as the producers, what becomes of
our internal industry, either agricultural or manufac-
turing? It needs no reply, nor, indeed, can sophism
invent one : ruin awaits both. If this, therefore, be
the final consequence of adopting the principles and
policy of the new school, better would it be for England
were Berkley's wall of brass thrown round our Island,
to protect its abused inhabitants from a system whose
tendency is to depress them to the level of the lowest,
the cheapest, and the most beggarly country that it
can discover; constantly starting such as the competitor
342 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [§XIV.
of England. The products of human industry, in
which we can compete triumphantly, are many and
important ; there are others again to which competition
would be ruin : our ancestors carefully made the dis-
tinction, and the nation profited, and whole classes
of the community were preserved, by this policy.
Enough of the products of human industry remain, on
which to found the principle of a large and liberal in-
tercourse ; and these Nature herself clearly indicates by
a fair but different distribution of her varying bounties.
But she has been more merciful than to constitute the
staff of life one of these her peculiar gifts ; nay, she has
interposed great, and what the advocates of impor-
tation would fain represent as insuperable, obstacles
against a nation's relying upon the broken reed of
foreign supply for its daily bread. But on this subject
more hereafter : in the mean time we are told, by our
political economists, that things will find their own
level, if left to themselves. This is true, and it is for
this very reason that we object to their policy and
their plans ; we do not wish to see the peasantry of
England, under their skilful management, balanced
with the boors of Russia. As far as the system has
already gone, it has sunk the middle ranks, once the
strength of the country, into the lees and dregs of
wretchedness ; while, in these national agitations, the
bubbles have risen from beneath, and covered the
surface of society with froth.
(26.) But the financial obstacles in the way of a free
trade in corn, and cheap prices, did none else inter-
pose, are insuperable. To say not a single word about
the disposable revenues of the country, and which, we
§XIV.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 343
are at present informed, cannot be materially reduced ^,
let us advert to its fixed incumbrances, I mean its debt,
amounting to considerably above 800 millions sterling ;
a trifle, vrhich the partisans of the new system rarely
think it worth while to recollect, in any of their argu-
ments and calculations.
That the value of the real property of the country,
or, in other words, of its products, determines in great
measure all other values throughout the whole king-
dom, the settled incumbrances alone excepted (and
even those, though in a ratio directly adverse, gene-
rally speaking, to the other national interests), few, I
helieve, will controvert : so at least argue the par-
tisans of the new system, even as it regards the value
of the products of the steam-engine, and would per-
suade us to act accordingly. Now, to reduce these
values, at once, throughout a whole country, entirely
unincumbered, would render that country neither
richer nor poorer: it would, indeed^ by greatly altering
the proportionate value of real property, and all
money debts and engagements, involve hundreds of
thousands of individuals in distress and ruin ; but
the depression of these would only be the elevation of
others, which is just what our political economists
mean by things finding their own level. But, touching
the national incumbrance, unexampled in magnitude in
the history of human aifairs, these projected altera-
tions would become, in their issue, matters of over-
whelming import ; just as they should have the effect
of lowering the money value of the real property of
the empire, would they increase the pressure ot its
' See Edinburgh Review for October, 18'27.
344 IRELAND; ITS EVILSV, [§ XIV.
fixed debt. Where is the man of common sense that
dares deny this ? To the pointy therefore ; England
has a debt of upwards of 800 milHons, the interest of
which she has engaged to discharge, not by a " corn
rent," but by a fixed sum of money, say 28 milhons
per annum. This debt, if it be ever repaid at all, must
be repaid in great measure from the real property of
the country : it will appear that even its interest is
mainly provided for from that quarter, when the wealth
of the country is traced to its source. Locke, speaking
of land, in reference to the public incumbrance, says,
''^ there at last it will terminate^;" and observes, that
"taxes, however contrived, and out of whose hands
soever immediately taken, do, for the most part, ter-
minate upon land^." He "challenges any one to show
him a country" where it is otherwise^; and still he had
Holland before his eyes, and, indeed, in his full recol-
lection at the time, for he had just been alluding to
it. I am fully aware that this doctrine is no longer
considered orthodox, though the theorists who im-
pugn it will just as readily overturn it, as they can his
Essay on the human understanding. But, to defer to
their superior light ; supposing the share of the debt,
falling on the real property of the nation, to amount
to 600 millions only, of the whole, — and as other values,
as before observed, are principally regulated by that
of land and its products, the remaining property of the
I'^ingdom (exclusive of its coin, which is a trifle in
this argument) is placed in precisely the same predi-
cament, as that about to be explained ;— supposing we
' Locke, Considerations on the lowerina: of Interest, Works,
vol. ii. p. 29. ' Ibid. p. 27. ^^ [bid, p. 30.
§ XIV.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 845
estimate the annual value of the land, including
''^ housing," at 50 millions, and allow this to pay rather
less than 3i per cent., which, considering the nature of
the latter property, is, I think, not too high an esti-
mate; then the real property of the country would
amount to about 1,340 millions — about forty pounds
an acre for the cultivated land, including houses.
A fall of one half in the value of the produce*, the
value of property sinking in the same proportion, or
anything like it, would occasion a national bank-
ruptcy. Assuming, in the first place, the worth of
the real property of the country to be 1,340 millions,
chargeable with its share of the public debt, 600 mil-
lions,— the value of its unincumbered part would of
course be 740 millions : but, reduce the value of the
former one-half, and the clear value remaining would
be reduced to one-tenth of the former sum, and would
amount only to 70 millions ; a sum totally inadequate
to sustain its possessors, or even to substantiate, prac-
' Perhaps this supposition may be thought extravagant; but if
the prices of corn on the continent are attended to, it may appear
otherwise. Even within a few hours' sail of us, in the ports of
Holland, wheat seems to be little more than a third of its value
here. (See Returns of British Consuls, Paper No. 42, &c.) • But
it is still preferable to appeal to facts, where they can be obtained,
rather than to rely on reasonings, however apparently clear and
conclusive they may be. We have already seen that Mr. Canning
attributed the " extraordinary depression" in the English market,
which continued for three years afterwards, to the influx of foreign
corn in 1818 and 1819. The extent of that depression we can
easily ascertain; it is a matter of record. In the year preceding,
viz., 1817, when the importation commenced, wheat was 94s. 9d.:
in the year 1822, to which Mr. Canning asserted the influence of
that importation extended, having regularly fallen during the
whole time, it had sunk to 435. 3c?. But the very proposition of
abandoning the poorer soils, which the political economists now
always connect with the question, sufficiently substantiates the
correctness of the foregoing view of the subject.
346 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [§ XIV.
tically, their claims upon the property thus reduced
in value. These sums and proportions may not be
at all correct, nor do I contend that they are ; but,
under every possible rectification, the result of the
measure would be the same, — national bankruptcy.
(27.) To enforce the preceding statement by a
striking illustration, or rather demonstration, for such
it will appear when duly considered : — In many parts
of India, the produce of the land is, after the har-
vest, collected into a heap, from which the various
claimants take their respective shares. This, how-
ever disguised by the artificial expedients of money
or paper payments, is virtually the case everywhere.
It is so here, even according to the showing of our
political economists. How stands the case, then, in
reference to England and its public debt ? At the
termination of the war, the nation had to pay its cre-
ditors in wheat, out of its heap, calculated on the
average price of twenty preceding years, during which
so large a portion of the debt had been contracted,
about fifty-five millions of bushels. Twelve years
afterwards, in 1826, being the last which I have
examined the averages of, we were paying these
creditors, out of the same heap, eighty millions of
bushels. This has become sufficiently onerous. But
our projectors have discovered a singular method of
lightening the burden ; they propose that (by throw-
ing lands out of cultivation) we should greatly dimi-
nish the national heap, and, at the same time, double
the claims upon it. In reducing the whole incum-
brance into measures of wheat, as is done in many
other calculations, I am illustrating the case rather
§ XIV.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 347
than accurately explaining it ; were 1 enabled to do the
latter^ the proposition would be still more odious.
That part of the national incumbrance which is paid
more directly by human labour, whether manufactur-
ing or agricultural, (and it is now argued no incon-
siderable proportion of it is so provided for,) demands
an increase of that labour to a like extent. Allowing^
as our political economists contend, that the price of
labour is, in a great degree, determined by that of
corn, the workmen of England would, under the
bperation of this universal reduction of prices, have to
contribute so many more days' labour, in order to
discharge their quota of the fixed incumbrance, as
that difference amounted to.
(28.) But it is very seldom that the national debt
is alluded to at all in these discussions, although it is
that which renders the corn question so tremendously
momentous in its bearings. It is, however, noticed
in a late number of a periodical work, which, I under-
stand, is with many reckoned great authority ; and
where, consequently, one may expect to find the
question I am considering presented in its plainest
and most forcible form. It therefore behoves me,
while on this subject, to examine, and I shall do so
as briefly as possible, the article in question. And^
first, it must be remarked, that the whole argument
amounts to a full admission that the country, under its
present circumstances, cannot possibly dispense with
protection to its agriculture — no, not even should
its own proposition be acceded to ; as^ after making
the effort recommended, it is still proposed to retain
348 IRELAND ; ITS EVILS, [§ XIV.
a " constant duty of 5s. or 6s, a quarter*;" so that
we are, after all, united, it appears, on the general
principle ; the difference being only as to the mea-
sure of its application. As to the mode by which
it is proposed to overcome the difficulty : it is one
which would have fully confirmed me in all my
preceding views on the subject, had I entertained
doubts respecting them ; and which I think would,
and I am sure ought to, have brought me over to
them, had I previously held contrary opinions : for,
assuredly, never was there a proposition submitted
to the public, fraught with more folly and unfairness,
than the one which is levelled against agriculture, in
the article I have just been perusing. Passing over
much that is positively incomprehensible, such as a
sum of ten or twenty millions per annum, now in
actual circulation amongst us, being '^ wasted without
advantage to any individual whatever, and in fact as
much destroyed, as if it were cast into the fire or the
sea^," — I shall merely allude, at present, to the direct
proposition respecting the corn-laws. It seems to be
acknowledged, that these cannot be materially altered
without a great reduction in the national debt ; and a
reduction to the amount of one-half of that debt is
proposed.
First, then, as to the calculations of the scheme.
The debt is estimated at 760 millions, and, as I under-
stand the article, the other property of the United
Kingdom at 2,330 millions ; an assessment of 12 per
cent, on the whole of which, it is said, " would be
about adequate to discharge the half of the existing
' Edinburgh Review, No. xcii. p. 401. * Ibid, p. 402.
^XIV.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 349
public debt of tbe country \*' But if tbe public ac-
counts are correctly published, or are to be understood
and relied upon, I find^ in 1826^ the public debt (for
it would be idle not to include the outstanding and
unfunded part of it) standing thus : —
Capitals unredeemed £ 778,128,267
Unfunded Debt 35,849,588
£813,977,855^
Exclusive, it is stated, of £5,548,817 exchequer bills,
to be issued ; exclusive, also, I should suppose, of
the debt due to the Bank, and that which, by a curious
misnomer, goes under the name of the " dead
weight :" — may it be a living one, as long as nature
will permit ; the debt of justice and of gratitude,
which a grateful country pays to its veteran defenders,
will be the last of which she will complain ! These
additional items will, I fear, augment the incum-
brances of the country to a formidable extent. But,
excluding them altogether, and taking the whole debt
at only 814 milHons, and the property of the country, as
estimated, at 2,330 millions^, twelve per cent, on both
would amount to£377,2 ^0,000, leaving J'436,720,000 ;
rather more than half, according to arithmetic, but
involving a very trifling mistake, however, compared
* Edinburgh Review, No. xcii, p. 408.
* Hansard, Pari. Papers, vol. xv. pp. xi. and xix. Since writing
the above, I have seen the statement, made by the Right Honourable
Robert Peel, which stands thus : —
Capitals unredeemed £777,476,000
Amount of the unfunded debt outstandino- . 34,770,000
£812,246,000
To this sum must be added the items mentioned above; and,
if we are to break up the " monopolies," I should presume the East
India debt, &c.
^ Edinburgh Review, \o. xcii. p. 408.
350 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [§ XIV.
with those which arc fallen into in making up this
^'half."
To say little at present about the proposal of the
plunder of the property of great numbers of our fel-
low-subjects, who, under the direct encouragement
of the legislature, have embarked their capital in
what our writer calls " monopolies," (which, however^
are monopolies of this peculiar character, that they
are open to any individual who may choose to partici-
pate in them) ; and to advert, principally, to the way
in which it is proposed to deal with agriculture :
talking about '' the forced cultivation of the inferior
soils" (and pray what cultivation is there that is not
forced ?) it is intimated that they should go out of that
state. As this is the favourite and perpetually repeated
maxim of the whole school, it becomes a matter
of much importance to inquire what proportion of
the country they mean to include in this comparative
mode of description ; and what is the amount of
" the inferior soils," the " poorer land," which, accord-
ing to the notion of these patriots, must be ^'^aban-
doned:" but on this important subject we are left in
the dark. We know what is properly so called is by
far the largest quantity every where. Even in the
Pays-de-Waes, " incontestably the richest part of
Flanders V and consequently of Europe, if not of
the world, "three-eighths only are considered goodV*
certainly nothing like so large a proportion could be
so denominated in England. Mr. Ricardo certainly
* Abb6 Mann, Memoir on the Agric. of Flanders, in his Com-
munications to the Board of Agriculture, vol. i. p. 234.
* RadclifF, Report of the Agric. of Flanders, p. 162.
§XIV.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 351
speaks out upon this point : he divides our soils, by
way of exemplifying this idea of throwing lands out
of cultivation, into six classes, putting half of them
out in regular gradation ; namely, the sixth, fifth, and
fourth, by a continued fall of prices, which importation,
it is not meant to be denied, would occasion ; and
he adds these ominous words, — and so on\ These
poorer soils, all such writers complain, require more
hands to cultivate than the richer ones. This fact
is conceded, and let it be borne in mind. What is
it, then, that this constantly repeated proposal of
putting the inferior soils out of cultivation amounts
to ? To speak quite within the bounds of probability
and truth^ it amounts, on their own principle, to this :
to depriving, ultimately, a great proportion of the
farmers of England of their calling, and a vast mul-
titude of the labourers of England of work ; and,
consequently, that proportion of both classes, and
their families, of their daily bread. Supposing we
were to admit that much of the land, abandoned as
corn-fields, would be then depastured, he knows
nothing of his subject who would argue that this
would continue the latter in employment: *' It is
husbandry" alone, as Sir Thomas More says, that
^' requireth many hands ^." But what are all these
considerations, " to the cool-blooded calculators of
the day ;" — '' Worshippers," as Burke exclaims, " of
trade and commerce, which," says he, " are the
' Ricardo, Principles of Polit. Econ., p. 314.
^ Utopia, p. 60. Montesquieu says " Pasture lands find employ-
ment only for a few. Corn lands employ a g;reat many men." —
(Esp. des Loix, 1. xxiii. c. 14.) For the ditlerence in the proportion,
see Farmer's Letters, pp. 45 — 84, 149.
352 tRELAND; ITS EVILS, [§ XIV.
gods of our political economists'." The grey-headed
exiles^ unknowing of any other employment, and
not able to obtain any, if they could learn it, with
their destitute families, are no impediment in the
plans of these enlightened patriots ; they will '^ find
their own level!" and while the poor wretches are
rapidly sinking to it, these heartless system-mongers
earnestly advise the nation to withdraw all charitable
assistance from them, and teach the wealthy and the
fortunate, as far as in them lies, to exclaim concerning
such in the ears of an offended Deity, — '^ Am I my
brother's keeper ?"
And not only would millions be thrown out of em-
ment and bread by this proposition, but, what I am
happy to see appears a heinous offence in the sight
of our reviewer, as it regards the stock-holder, multi-
tudes would be deprived of their property ; the little
freeholders of the kingdom, as before observed, prin-
cipally owning the worser soils, and the great landed
proprietors the richer tracts of country. This writer,
being in all respects an economist, means to ac-
complish two objects at the same time. He proposes
to be at once humane and liberal — at the expense of
others — the East and West India proprietors. He
proceeds, however, as all others invariably do who have
similar purposes, by commencing with an attack upon
character, when property has to be struck at. *^They "
(the West Indians, I presume) " are fosterers of a
system of slavery." To be sure they are, and Eng-
land, from the first, fostered them in it. I am for
abolition, and ever have been, but not in the way of
' Burke, Reflections on the French Revolution, p. 117.
§ XIV.J AND THEIR REMEDIES. 353
spoliation, but by contributing cheerfully my honest
share towards carrying into effect so godlike an act :
so that the national justice should be unsullied, while
its humanity was exalted ; and the merit of the act
shared by a generous people that wills its accom-
plishment. Then the East Indian proprietors, —
they, it seems, are *^ pampered and supported" at the
expense of " the nation." I, too, wish to see India
governed in the name of George the Fourth ; but I
should never dream of the nation's taking possession
of the property of the Company, without taking at
the same time to its debts : and I do not perceive
that this calculator has made any provision for this
item either, immense as it is in its present amount \
But to litturn to our little freeholder, — what has he
done ? Why he belongs, it seems, to ^'^ a caste :"
reasons are given, not very creditable either to his
character as a man or a Christian, why many thou-
sands of such should, throughout the kingdom, be
disbanded^. And this once I give the projector cre-
dit for some considerable share of prudence and just
calculation : meditating the robbery of this " caste"
(now, for the very first time, as I believe, insulted as a
' I cannot refrain here from pausing a moment, to put a case.
I ha\xMn my eye two neighbours: — one a large stock-holder ; the
reviewer speaks very becomingly about the profligacy of attempting
to lessen his demand, or deprive him of any part of his just claims.
Another has her all (for she is a widow A\ilh a family) in East
India Stock : this, as far as I can understand the proposal about
monopolies, is to be seized, or at least rendered valueless, by the
annihilation of the " monopoly," for the public benefit. 1 confess
I cannot discern why the Government of the country should ruin
and starve the latter, alter having hitherto " pampered and sup-
ported " her. for the purpose of serving the former.
' Edinburgh Review, No. xcii. p. 398.
2 A
354 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [§XIV.
body), it was well to recommend that they should be
disarmed. But, seriously ; tens of thousands of these
yeomen have bought their little property under the
operation of that system of laws which, protecting
the home grower, fixed and guaranteed, as far as
legislation could do so, its value_, but which, it seems,
is now, for the public good_, to go out of cultivation,
and its value consequently be annihilated. If this
principle is to be adopted respecting property, why
need there be any difficulty about the public debt?
Annihilate the claims of all the creditors, at least the
lesser ones, at once. Perhaps this idea has not been
entirely overlooked in a calculation that makes 289
milhons about the "half of the existing public debt V'
and 760 the whole ofit^ #
Thus is it, that, in the propositions of our modern
patriots, the humble interests of this numerous
" caste," the little freeholders of England and Ireland,
are wholly lost sight of. Those of the mere tenant
have now and then been alluded to. Mr. Ricardo, I
think, somewhere says, that their capital might be
gradually withdrawn : but how much of it would
remain, when the land, on which it has been sunk,
goes out of cultivation ; how it is^ in such cases, to be
withdrawn, and where it is to be withdrawn to, are
matters on which he has not entered. He does, in-
deed, say, that his implements, such as carts, &c.,
might be sold, — and in what a market ! all sellers and
not a buyer ! The idea is laughable, only that it
involves in it that universal distress which Sir
' Edinburgh Review, No. xcii. p. 408. ^ Ibid. p. 407.
§ XIV.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 355
Thomas More so accurately described and so feelingly
deplored ; when, prompted by the same selfish policy,
lands were put out of tillage in his day, and turned
into sheep-walks : were the same course to be again
pursued, the consequences would be still more ap-
palling.
But to return to the proposition of our reviewer.
Schemes, such as that proposed, are generally accom-
panied with their proper antidote. In this instance,
the meditated iniquity is neutralized by manifest imbe-
cility. Notwithstanding, it must be apparent to a
child, first, that the land which this plan would put
out of cultivation, would be deprived of its value ; —
secondly, that the value or rent of the part which
should still remain in cultivation, would be propor-
tionably diminished ; a fact which Mr. Ricardo him-
self has fully explained and proved ; — and thirdly, that
the price of labour, and consequently of all artificial
productions, would be similarly diminished. Still, our
projector, in levying his twelve per cent, on all the
property of the kingdom, in order to pay off half (as
he calculates) the national debt, has valued all the
lands which his own project is to throw out of culti-
vation, and all those which may still remain in that
state, though proportionably reduced (to say nothing
about other descriptions of property), at their full
value, when universally cultivated, and that value so
prodigiously advanced by what is called a monopoly
price for their products ! He calculates, as I under-
stand him, that the value of the corn annually con-
sumed in the United Kingdom, by adopting his proposal
(which still would leave a *' constant duty of 5?. or 6s.
■2 A 2
350 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [^ XIV.
a quarter on importation^"), would 8ink upwards of
nineteen millions ; a sum which, he says, is very con-
siderably underrated : much of our supply would
therefore come from abroad ; and yet, in his proposed
impost, he values the corn-lands of the kingdom, as
well those that shall be thrown out of cultivation,
as those that may remain in that state, upon the old
" monopoly" scale. Nor does the absurdity end here ;
it has barely entered upon its career: entertaining,
for a moment, the idea of our projectors, that some
of the lands thrown out of tillage would be employed
in pasturage, in addition to those already so occupied
(and, if not, they must be utterly lost to the coun-
try), the deterioration in the price of the vegetable
product, corn, would be trifling, compared with that
of the animal products of the country, forming such
an enormous item of national consumption. The
former is to sink, at the very least, .£19,200,000;
how much then must the latter be reduced? And yet
these reductions, neither in one case nor the other,
vast as they must necessarily be, and proportionally
depreciating the money-value, at all events, of all the
real property of the kingdom, are once taken info
consideration. All the calculations are made upon
the data of the old system, the high prices which it
is the very purpose of the proposition to abolish.
Without entering into a single computation, it is pal-
pably plain that the remaining part of the debt would
press far heavier on the property of the countiy than
the whole of it now does ; and the nation w ould have
to exclaim, in the language of an ancient poet, though
' Edinburgh Review, No. xcii. p. 409.
§XIV.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 357
applied in a far different sense, namely, in maintaining
the cause of minute cultivation, instead of opposing
it — '^ the half is more than the whole."
But as my primary intent, in defending the interests
of our national agriculture, is the preservation of
Ireland, I must not pass by the proposition as it
affects that couijtry; neither, indeed, does the re-
viewer. '^ As the whole empire,'* says he, " would be
benefited — every part of it ought to contribute
equally to that great object'." Ireland, I need
not repeat, is almost exclusively agricultural ; how
she would be " benefited" by having the present
protection of her industry and products withdrawn,
and ten times the number of her population ad-
mitted as her rivals and competitors in the British
market^ is not explained. She is valued, however, on
the foregoing system_, at 333 millions sterling ; and it
is proposed to mulct her of nearly fifty of those mil-
lions, for the "benefit" of being deprived of her
present " monopoly !"
To say nothing, then, about the little freeholders of
the United Kingdom, who would be undone ; the lease-
holders whose property would be destroyed ; the
mortgagers who would be ruined ; the multitudes of
simple contract debtors who would be sacrificed ;
without a single whisper about any compromise or
compensation, in any of these cases : — to mention not
a word about the cruel attempt to brand, with the
opprobrious terms of odious monopolies, interests in
which the all of numbers has been embarked under
the continued encouragement and protection of the
' Edinburgh Review, No. xcii. p. 408.
358 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [§ XIV.
country and its laws ; — not to dwell upon the shame-
lessness of the proposal of taxing the lands of the
kingdom^ at present cultivated^ at their full value, for
the direct purpose of making a part of them of no
value at all, and greatly reducing that of the remain-
der;— totally to divest ourselves, I say, of common feel-
ing, as well as common honesty, what becomes of the
practicability of such a scheme ? Why, even on paper,
where almost every hypothesis works well, this mani-
fests its absurdity. A man that can estimate the
value of land, when its produce shall have sunk in
price, as it is anticipated it would, as high as it was
rated at under the monopoly so much inveighed
against ; and, moreover, that bates not a farthing for
those lands, now in full cultivation, but which, it is
then plainly intimated, would not be cultivated at all,
but abandoned, — is indeed a most singular sort of a
surveyor ; he would value the Goodwin Sands at
their worth in the days of the Conqueror, when they
were covered with verdure or glowing with cultiva-
tion. Such proposals as these, for paying off the
national debt, might have proceeded from some
learned and patriotic professor of the college of La-
puta. And yet this writer can sneer at such men as
" Lords Lauderdale, Malmesbury," and others of " our
hereditary legislators ^," which, perhaps, may be deemed
a sufficient example and apology for the freedom
which I have, in turn, taken with him. He mentions
Bonaparte ; has he forgotten his maxim upon the
subject under consideration, and what he made the
a^rand basis of all national prosperity?
' Edinburgh Review, No. xcii. p. 402.
§ XIV.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 359
Thus is it, that our political economists of the pre-
sent day fearlessly contradict common sense ; pour
contempt upon the authority of the greatest and
wisest men our country has ever produced, and ridi-
cule a course of policy hy which the nation has pro-
gressively risen to the highest pitch of happiness and
prosperity. Authorities rise into notice^ not for their
solidity and truth, but, like aeronauts, on the principle
of levity; many look up, and admire the more, the
less they see and understand ; till at length our politi-
cal economists are elevated into oracles. — '^ These be
thy gods, O Israel!"
To conclude the pecuniary part of the argument :
while England has the immense fixed debt which she
now sustains, to lower the value of the property of
the country, is, in the hke proportion, to increase the
incumbrance ; no sophistry can deny, no cunning
evade, this conclusion. If then, ages ago, it was
deemed, as we have seen, the duty of the true poli-
tician to support the value of the property of the
nation, it is a thousand-fold more indispensable to
do so at the present time\ Hence it becomes a
' Perhaps, while on this subject, the author may be permitted to
briefly state the ideas he entertained on the subject of discharging
a part of the national debt ; which his friends will recollect was a
favourite subject with him, while it remained plainly practicable. It
was this. While the paper system of circulation was in full acti-
vity (a system under which much of the debt had been contracted),
and while, therefore, the nominal value of ail property and pro-
ducts was high, he would have assessed the property of the king-
dom one per cent, per annum, for ten successive years ; the debt
discharged would, of course, have been taken up in investments in
lands, sold for the purpose of such liquidation, which all its life-
possessors, as well as others, would have been empowered to do.
As the remission of taxes would have kept pace with this operation,
the burden would have been little felt, but the national good would
360 IRELAND; ITS KVILS, [§^I^'-
question of the deepest concernnieiit, even to touch
the circulating medium of the country ; and this should
not be done, I humbly conceive, with a view to di-
minish the money-values of the products of either
land or labour. Every thing should be attempted to
render it sound, nothing to contract it; a course which
seems perfectly clear, consistent, and practicable. But,
with regard to the proposition I have been consider-
ing, the very attempt to carry it into effect would be
universal confusion, and its accomplishment, ruin.
(29.) Finally : there is another, and a far more im-
portant reason against rendering this country de-
pendent upon others for an essential part of her
supply of bread, than any of those previously adduced,
however momentous they may be deemed in them-
selves, or their ultimate effects. It is this: we should,
by so doing, not only divest her of her present power,
and lower her commanding attitude, but we should
place her at the mercy of other nations. Not only
would the lives of her people, as Tacitus deplored
concerning the Romans, in their rich but degenerate
days, be dependent upon the winds and the waves, but
upon the still more uncertain policy of foreign coun-
tries. These, in a period of peace, on the occasion of
have been great. The labours of the bullion committee, however,
forestalled this measure, or rather rendered it impracticable, and
have, in their consequences, inflicted upon the country much of the
evils and difficulties it has encountered. Cash-payment, in the strict
sense of the term, I fear is but another word for an increase of the
debt, and a reduction of the value of the real property of the king-
dom. Could not a large issue of paper circulation for a certain
number of years still render this plan practicable ? But, even were
it accomplished, God forbid that the cultivators of England and
Ireland should be beaten out of their own market by the slaves of
Russia.
§ XIV.] AM) THEIR HEMEDIES. *i(>l
any internal failure of produce, would, of course, as
has been already observed, serve themselves first ; but,
in a time of war, would not serve us, or be allowed to
serve us, at all. Look into the annals of the British
empire, and see how often and how long we have been
at war, and not always, it may be hoped, wrongfully.
If, then, the country which supplies us be in the
possession, or under the control of our enemies, in
what position will our political economists then have
placed us ? What will it avail, though the citadel of the
liberties of the world be still surrounded by impregnable
bulwarks, and garrisoned by a band of unconquerable
heroes, if it have to be victualled by its enemies ? Had
Britain then the heart of Hercules, or the hands of
Briareus, it would avail her nothing : some northern
despot, conscious of his power, and not averse to its
exercise, w^ould have only to speak the word, and the
courage that had awed the nations would become
tamed, and the power that had, in turn, chastised them
all, weakness itself. But even were these supplies
always derived, by a miraculously fortunate chance,
from countries not mingled up in hostilities against
us, still their constant receipt could be secured only
by the uninterrupted continuation of our naval supre-
macy, which another of the propositions of modern
policy is, I fear, far from guaranteeing ; or it must
depend on the issue of battles where, on our part,
the lives of myriads would be at stake, besides those
engaged in the conflict ; or, otherwise, on the state of
the weather and the changes of the wind. It is thus
that we are exhorted by our modern patriots, instead
of cultivatinir our native fields, and dothinir them with
362 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [§ XIV.
sufficient and unfailing harvests, to — " sow to the
wind/ and reap of the whirlwind!"
(30). But it is in the very nature of all theories
never to be embarrassed with any difficulties ; these,
however numerous or important, can always be met
by accommodating the hypothesis to the occasion, or
obviating it altogether by a prophecy. Thus, on a
sudden emergency, like the one just anticipated,
though wheat requires so much longer a period, both
in the previous preparation of the land and in its
coming to maturity, than most other kinds of vege-
table food, still countries from which we had not pre-
viously purchased, and which, consequently_, had not
provided for our sudden demand, would doubtless be
able to supply us, would be willing so to do, and be
in a situation to act as they wished in this respect.
Or, if so many rather nice contingencies should, on so
vital a matter, rather alarm our apprehensions than
allay them ; why then our economists will promise us,
in future, a reign of uninterrupted peace, and prophesy
a political millennium; — not one, indeed, in which we
shall beat our swords into ploughshares, and our spears
into pruning-hooks, and every happy inhabitant shall
sit under the shadow of his own cultivation in peace
and plenty ; but one, on the contrary, in which the
implements of agriculture shall be converted into
^^ big-bens" and " spinning-jennies;" and all shall sit
in the smoke of a steam-engine, and have their food
brought to them from afar, at least such whose labour
may be still demanded, and, amongst these, children and
women ! On which circumstances a few words are due.
Most writers and travellers have hitherto held it an
§XIV.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 363
unequivocal mark of barbarism, wherever the sex has
been degraded into common drudges ; this, however,
our present civiHzed system has long had the gallantry
of doing in England, the effects of which^ in a moral
point of view, are too well known to need pointing
out or proving ; and not only so, but even children
are, by a solecism of speech, now become workmen_,
our language not having as yet accommodated us
with an appropriate word for the occasion. The
morning of life, which God and nature intended as a
time of mirth and pleasure, is made that of imprison-
ing, unhealthful, and demoralizing labour ; and our
political philanthropists wish to extend this system,
instead of encouraging cultivation ; though no doubt
their feelings would be severely shocked at seeing
such treatment transferred to the brute creation : —
as, for instance, were the farmer, providing himself
with gearing and implements for the purpose^, daily
to labour a yearling foal at the plough, aye, and
nightly, if it suited his interests ; cruelty like this, to
animals, would excite universal sympathy and abhor-
rence, and probably travel the nation in ten thousand
paragraphs : it is thus our delicate susceptibilities find
a vent ! It is rather a melancholy task to trace the
progress of the new system ; to anticipate its ultimate
consequences, if every other interest amongst us must
give way to it, is most appalling. In the times of
ignorance, ^' Man went forth to his work in the
morning," he w^as the labourer of the family, and it
sufficed ; but now his infant children are demanded
to make up his necessary means of subsistence, and
too often become, not his assistants, but his rivals in
364 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [^XIV.
the market of labour, to use the phrase of the times ;
so that himself is often now found there " all the day
idle, because no man hath hired him/* when the
fashionable system of policy coolly recommends his
desertion. In good times, as they are called, he sees
his children go forth to their work in the evening (to
save the capital of the machine owners), when the
benevolent law of nature, universally obeyed through-
out animated life^ is reversed as it regards those to
whom it is the most essential. To be sure, he has all
along been informed and assured that these things
were all for his advantage, especially when he has
thought otherwise^ and been turbulently disposed ;
but he has been the truer prophet and political econo-
mist : his labour has become less and less valuable_,
till he is at length pronounced, on high authority^ to
be redundant ; and measures are at this instant being
projected to send him out of his country. Inven-
tions which retain the pleasing appellation of '^ ma-
chines for shortening human labour," are, to all
intents and purposes, become machines for supplant-
ing it, as far as possible ; in one sense, indeed, they
are appropriately named, for they have the effect
of shortening life^ Contrivances to dispense with
this labour almost altogether are hailed as public be-
nefits, and eagerly adopted. On this subject I shall
not further express myself, but conclude with the lan-
guage of an able article on political economy in the
Edinburgh Encyclopedia: — "All the workmen of Eng-
* I take, from the same county, the following statistical facts,
presenting the comparative law of population in an agricultural,
and in a manufacturing hundred, in the same county (Lancashire).
The numbers in each, at the ages specified, are calculated on a radix
Ages
Under
5
5
to
10
10
—
15
15
—
20
20
—
30
30
—
40
40
—
50
50
—
60
60
—
70
70
—
80
80
—
90
10,000
8,180
- 908
7,481
+ 30
6,483
— 105
9,781
— 222
7,046
- 921
5,050
— 791
3,130
— 1356
1,838
-1793
792
— 1070
177
— 40S
12
— 57
§ XIV.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 305
land would be turned into the street, if the manufac-
of 10,000 children under five years of years, and are proportioned to
the census of 1821, as then discriminated into ages : —
Hundred of Lonsdale, In the Manufacturing Differ-
North of the Sands, Hundred of Salford. ence.
10,000
9,088
7,451
6,588
10,003
7,967
5,841
4,486
3,631
1,862
585
90 and upwards 69
This table, exhibiting so astonishing a difference in the ratio of
mortality, does not include the great town of Manchester. Neverthe-
less, what a curtailment in the narrow span of human life does
it exhibit, and what sickness and sorrow does it not imply in that
contracted space ! The system begins to cut off life ere it reaches
its prime, tainting, if we may believe our highest medical authori-
ties, with those hereditary diseases which are already beginning
to manifest themselves, the constitution of the mass of the
people in such districts, and which may soon relieve our anti-
populationists from their fears as to futurity. But, supposing the
statistics of moral and political offences were added, which may
very easily be done, then what sort of a picture would be presented !
These are of a still more appalling character. In the name, there-
fore, of philanthropy, patriotism, and religion, let those pause with
whom such feelings are still more sacred than mere mercenary con-
siderations, ere they plead for the extension of manufactures at
the expense of the agriculture of the country. I am aware that
other collateral calculations enter into the computations of the above
table; they are such, however, as, on the whole, will be found to
heighten the contrast. These will be attended to in a subsequent
publication, in which the subject will be found more largely dis-
cussed, and an opinion hazarded as to the proper remedy for that
which none can refrain acknowledging to be a great and growing
evil. Without entering into detail, the principle is this : — Nature,
who for wise and benevolent purposes has rendered human beings
dependent upon each other's labour, has likewise accurately
balanced the wants that have to be supplied, by the number and
natural capability of those that have to supply them. But she has
not admitted into her calculations either infant or ii.tcessant labour.
Man, excited by the inordinate thirst of gain, has, to his disgrace,
resorted to both ; and he begins to be punished for disregarding
her dictates, and those of humanity, hy means of that over-pro-
366 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [§ XIV.
turers could employ steam-engines in their place at a
saving of five per cent \"
(31.) Much is said about arithmetic and geometric
ratios in regard to the increase of food, population^
the poor, &c. ; but were we to calculate, on any such
principles, the future deterioration in the wages of
some of the most important branches of manufac>
turing labour, according to what has regularly taken
place since the peace, melancholy indeed would be the
prospect ; the powers of production, that have to so
great an extent supplanted direct manual labour, seem
almost unlimited : not so the demand ; that cannot go
on indefinitely increasing; it may even not remain
stationary. It is not very probable that we can mono-
polize our inventions, and still less so that the labour
of the world can eventually be superseded by that of
England. The result will, assuredly, be otherwise,
and happily, as I believe, for every interest amongst
us. None can desire the unlimited spread of a system
which would degrade the condition of the people,
and which Nature herself would visibly deplore, in the
moral and physical deterioration of her offspring;
when her fields would go out of tillage, and England
become an immense factory surrounded by an uncul-
tivated common.
duction which occasions the periodical recurrence of those distresses
which, it is to be feared, will be thus increased, if not perpetuated.
Meantime, who are benefited ? My lady's robe may be finer by so
many "lees;" but so, likewise, is that of my lady's scullion:
while the producers are condemned to premature labour ; to rags,
and wretchedness ; to immorality and crime, and sickness and
death ! Not only philanthropy, religion, and patriotism, but even
policy and interest, dictate that the legislature should interfere ;
not, indeed, by proscribing human ingenuity, or its application, but
by prescribing, equally for the advantage of all parties, the proper
age and periods of human labour.
' Edinburgh Encvc. in verb. Polit. Econ.
§ XIV.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 367
Something might have been added to these argu-
ments in favour of the agriculturists, by way of an
appeal to the feehngs and generosity of their adver-
saries ; but it would, perhaps, be useless. The parental
interest of the country, from which most of us sprung,
now called a " monopoly," instead of being an over-
profitable pursuit, has long afforded those engaged in
it a very inadequate remuneration, consigned them
to hard fare, and many of them to ruin. The prices
of produce are low, and still falling ; but this does not
suffice. Meantime, many of those who are leading
the popular cry, and hunting down agriculture, have
been enjoying those luxuries which are rarely shared
by those who produce them, and have risen to an
affluence, by far less laborious pursuits, of which there
have been few instances in the farming world, and
certainly none recently. Such, in opposing agricul-
ture, have had all the advantages which concentrated
eiforts confer; which arise from their constantly sur-
rounding the seat of government, and, above all, from
their being backed by a number of powerful diurnal
advocates, who arc, as it regards themselves, certainly
''^ wise in their generation." It will be difficult, how-
ever, after all, to show that the country, compared with
the capital, including every town in the empire, is the
dependent. The reverse is obvious. Agriculture is un-
doubtedly the parental and sustaining pursuit ; though
some who are hostile to it, with the waywardness of
an infant, and it is to be hoped with the unconscious-
ness of one, are attempting to wound the maternal
bosom from which they are perpetually drawing their
nourishment and growth.
368 IRELAND; ITS EV^ILS, [^ XIV.
I speak these things in no hostility, open or dis-
guised, to the present commerce or manufactures of the
country, much less to those engaged in them : impelled
into the present system by the force of circumstances
over which they had no control, many of these are
amongst the most humane and patriotic of our country-
men, and are distinguished, in a nation '' whose mer-
chants are princes and traffickers^ the honourable ones
of the earth," by all that is elevated in character and
praiseworthy in conduct. Nay, if there be any one
point on which T feel more confident than another, it is
this ; that it is the interest of such to oppose the undue
extension of a system which meditates the discourage-
ment, if not the destruction of agriculture, even more
than it is that of the cultivators themselves so to do.
A little consideration will convince us that, in the
system of labour, a due balance of all the several parts
is the best security for the regular movement and per-
manent prosperity of the whole ; and that an adequate
and constant protection to agriculture is the true and
natural limitation of profitable manufacture. Certain
it is, that, were the absurd propositions of the day to
take effect, the present cultivators, who would then be
dispossessed of their employment, must seek it else-
where ; there would be only one course open to them,
and one, as I conceive, which would be highly prejudi-
cial to the manufacturers : instead of being, as now,
their best and steadiest customers, they must perforce be-
come their rivals, and that at a time when the difficulty
so often is how to dispose of the increasing quantity of
goods at present fabricated. Pursuits, therefore, now
but little profitable, would become not at all so, and,
§ XIV.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 369
from an increase of that competition which is already
so prejndicial, would then become ruinous. Things
would, indeed, "find their own level," but it would be
the level of universal depression. The '' artificial
system^" now so much inveighed against^ which is
made up of laws and institutions dictated by the
greatest men our country has ever produced, would
give way at its very foundations ; and we should be
made to feel the difference between it, and that " natu-
ral state of things," from which it has taken the per-
severing efforts of so many generations to elevate the
country ^
(32.) In discoursing on the interests of Ireland, it
is impossible to lose sight of its one great pursuit. I
have attempted to justify the policy of protecting
agriculture, even as it respects England, because I
conceived this was the best and surest mode of pur-
suing the argument to a successful issue ; and indeed
it was impossible to discuss it otherwise. The facts
adduced are of the most important character, and, I
believe, are undeniably true ; whether the deductions
drawn from them are agreeable to reason, and sanc-
tioned by experience, the reader must now judge. If,
when weighing these reasons in his mind against
others he may have heard adduced, the balance should
^ Some of the strongest arguments I have adduced in behalf of
effectually protecting British agriculture, are precisely similar to
those which I find, since I constructed them, JNIr. Iluskisson
had already urged, with great force and perspicuity, even when
corn was about fifty per cent, higher than it is at present, and when,
still, according to his views, bread was " ciiExVP, and altogether
owing to a sujficiencij of corn of our oivn growth." See his Letter
on the Corn Laws, passim. I may likewise refer to some very able
articles on the same important subject, which have, from time to
time, been pul)Hshed in Blackwood's Magazine.
2 B
370 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [§X1V.
still seem trembling with uncertainty, let him throw
the welfare, the subsistence, of millions of his Irish
brethren into the scale ; let him recollect the millions
of uncultivated acres in Ireland, and that those culti-
vated are not half laboured, and, consequently, not
half so productive as they might be, were its agricul-
ture better encouraged, — and the question is decided
for ever.
If, therefore, you wish to afford employment to the
multitudes in that country who are unwillingly idle ;
if you would continue the labour of those already oc-
cupied ; if you would increase and better the condition
of her industrious classes; and, finally, if you would
secure a large and permanent addition to the present
supplies of the empire, defend from the ruinous rivalry
of other countries, and continue to foster and protect
the agriculture of Ireland ; — this, in connexion with
those other natural remedies already adverted to, would
commence a new era for that unhappy people, would
diffuse individual comfort and happiness, and ensure
the general prosperity of the country. Other expe-
dients will be unavailing, and especially the present pro-
position of deporting the people ; an operation which
it is evident must, on the principles of those who
resort to it, be constantly repeated, entailing a new
and perpetual tax upon one part of the British people,
for the abhorrent purpose of getting rid of another ;
for it is the height of lunacy to suppose that procrea-
tion can in future be limited by law ^ With such un-
* Let as great a judge of nature as any who presume to decry
and counteract her laws, I mean Shakspeare, speak as to the utter
futility of all attempts at restraining marriage (and which, he
says, are " not politic in the commonwealth'') ^ excepting so far as
§ XIV.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 371
occupied, untouched, internal resources, therefore
send not forth our fellow-subjects in search of a pre-
carious subsistence to northern deserts, from whence
many of them, when conveyed thither, constantly
escape ; transport them not from their own temperate
climate to one, as the Portuguese poet sings,
que de neve
Boreal sempre abunda
The hundreds of millions of unoccupied acres there
form no better an argument for our neglecting and
deserting untouched millions of our own, than they
would that the universal nation should take flight,
and, like a flock of northern fowl, migrate at once to
that promised land. It is far less wild a scheme, and
infinitely more patriotic a one, to clear the wilds and
drain the bogs of our own country, than those of
Canada ; such, on better authority than now exists,
would constitute our finest soils ^ while the expense
would be beyond measure less ; the capital meantime
would be preserved to the country, however ex-
pended; and the public interest in it amply secured by
to spread universal immorality. He truly, though facetiously,
says, '' they loill marry incontinent, or else be incontinent before
marriage ; — thei/ will together ; clubs cannot part them." And sup-
posing any one, foolish and wicked enough, were (still to make
use of his language) to " exhibit a Bill in Parliament for the put-
ting down of men,'' knowing, as we do, how exceedingly small a
variatioQ in individual prolificness would change the national in-
crease into aa instant retrogression in numbers, were so infamous a
proposal carried, then we may express the consequence, in the words
of the same inimitable writer: — "7/" this low hold in Vienna ten
year. Til rent the fairest house in it after three-pence a bay.''
But the folly of legislating on such a subject, either openly or co-
vertly, would be nothing to the presumptuous wickedness of the
-attempt.
' Sec Young's Tour in Ireland, vol. ii. part 2, p. 74.
2B 2
372 IRELAND; ITS EVILS^ [§XIV.
the fruitful domains which would thus, from time to
time, be pledged to the country ; each being a new
creation, not indeed extending the limits, but increas-
ing and concentrating the strength of the empire ; — a
conquest of the ploughshare and the pruning-hook : —
a career this, opening, at every step, fresh springs of
plenty^ and new sources of employment, never to be
again dried up, or diverted into distant or adverse chan-
nels ; in a word, enlarging the resources_, improving
the health, and beautifying the face of the empire, and
by the very same means which redeemed this lovely
country from the deformity and desolation in which
it is first presented to our view, till "the wilderness
became like Eden, and the desert like the garden of the
Lord !" The voice of nature ; of patriotism ; of huma-
nity ; of God ! calls upon you to persevere. The spread
of cultivation is no wild or impracticable plan ; it is
one fraught with all the blessings Providence has to
bestow : it is a pursuit in which art and nature go
forth hand -in-hand, to certain and unceasing triumphs,
while the common mother. Earth, seems smiling upon
the labours of her children^ and the unclouded eye of
Heaven looks down, well pleased, upon the exertions it
has ordained and blessed ^ Perhaps these words may be
deemed enthusiastic ; the thoughts^ however,, are those
of truth and soberness, and are dictated by common
sense, and sanctioned by universal experience. To
Ireland they are peculiarly applicable ; and happily
her interests, if properly viewed, are those of the em-
pire at large. As a far inferior island, Sicily, was
long the granary of imperial Rome, let Ireland, cul-
' " God is pleased with cultivation." — (l^ay.)
§ XIV^] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 373
tivated by a nobler race of freemen^ become that
of a still mightier, and, may it so please Providence !
of a more permanent empire.
I have now propounded, as well as I have been able,
the most natural and efficacious remedies for what I
conceive to be the principal wrongs of Ireland, which
I have attempted to trace to their real sources. In
doing this^ should my feelings have led me into any
expressions unnecessarily harsh or severe, I shall
deeply regret the circumstance. I must, however,
observe_, that, if called upon to defend them, "^ I the
matter can re-word," in the stronger language of those
Avhose knowledge of the subject is undoubted, and
whose disinterested patriotism is beyond suspicion.
Above all, if, on the subject of the remedies of Ire-
land, the discussion of which has been carried to
so unintended a length, the foregoing propositions
should be disputed, let it be remembered, that the
main position of this work remains entirely un-
touched. It is not by dexterously shifting the
grounds of the argument ; by attempting to prove,
for example, in contradiction to what has been inci-
dentally advanced, that absenteeism is no injury to a
country, or a provision for the destitute poor a na-
tional evil and a disgrace, — that the principle of popu-
lation, as now held and applied to Ireland, is to be
maintained. It has been distinctly disproved, that the
distresses in Ireland are attributable to excessive
numbers, inasmuch as those distresses existed, and in
a still higher degree, when the population was noto-
riously scanty; and that, notwithstanding its augmen-
tation, the increase in all the necessaries of life has
374 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [§ XV-
increased in a far greater ratio, till, in relation to the
products and the people of the island, it is the former
and not the latter that are redundant. Such is the
conclusion, demonstrated by uniform historical facts,
which no pohtical sophistry can invalidate or evade.
§ XV. (1.) Hitherto the subject of the population
of Ireland has been treated without any direct reference
to the law of human increase, as developed in the
introduction to this work, and which I have ventured
to assure the reader has been demonstrated in reference
to all other countries which furnish the statistical do-
cuments necessary to the proof. If, however, on due
examination, the same principle be found to exist, and
constantly operate in Ireland, then the answer to the
propositions now made respecting that country is
final and complete; and it will be found that the feel-
ings of humanity are but other terms for the laws of
God : then not only will the principles of patriotism
and of sound policy rise in hostility to the projected
measures, but the irreversible laws of Nature will
peremptorily interdict their adoption.
I have already mentioned that I had long pursued
the inquiry on the subject of population, and with one
uniform result, without having once extended the
examination to Ireland, conceiving that the informa-
tion relative to that country was not sufficiently com-
plete, and being prepared to find Ireland an unhappy
exception to the operation of the general law of na-
tions, for reasons already stated — yet an exception
which decidedly proves the rule in question. But by
preceding to a further and more particular investi-
§ XV.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 375
gation of the census of Ireland, as recently taken
under the direction of government, I am now enabled
to show that even Ireland, which, as before mentioned,
has been often brought forward as contradicting the
real principle of population, on the contrary fully
corroborates it ; proving, in unison with every other
record of human existence which furnishes the neces-
sary means of comparison, that the prolificness of
human beings is regulated by their numbers ; and
furthermore showing, that it is by the increase of
human beings that Nature, when not thwarted in her
benevolent designs, improves the condition and ele-
vates the character of her rational offspring. She
may have been withstood, while accomplishing her
sacred purposes in that country, by causes fully
pointed out ; but still, even in Ireland, she has not
been wholly defeated ; even there she vindicates her
divine economy, and manifests her unerring laws.
(2.) In the late census of Ireland, the annual mar-
riages and births are wanting, which omission seems,
at first sight, an insuperable obstacle against insti-
tuting those comparisons which have fully established
the regulated principle of human fecundity, in regard
to all other countries furnishing the necessary means
of information. But the census is divided into ages :
we can, therefore, arrive at the results we seek, by
another method ; and one which, as being totally
different to the former, if it present precisely the same
fact, is the more satisfactory, the conclusions, thus
variously obtained, checking and corroborating each
other. In this census we have a column giving the
number of cliildren under five years of age: now, pre-
376
IRELAND ; ITS EVILS,
[§XV.
suming the proportion of marriages to be the same
throughout Ireland (and if it vary, it will, if we may
rely upon all other similar facts, so vary as to
strengthen the argument), then, computing the pro-
portion of these children to a given number of inha-
bitants in every province_, and comparing these
together, the order of their prolificness will be clearly
indicated. Then, as we have the area of the provinces
severally, as well as the number of inhabitants in
each^ we have the necessary facts for enabling us to
determine, lastly, whether Ireland obeys the law of
population for which I contend, as that of nature and
of truth. In the ensuing table, the four provinces
are taken in their aggregate amounts ; the number of
children under five, in each, being calculated on every
twenty thousand of the inhabitants, in order to faci-
litate comparisons with similar tables and calculations
in the work about to be pubhshed.
TABLE of the Four Provinces of Ireland, showing the Contents, Popu-
lation, and Number of Children under Five Years old in each, in 1821 ;
with the Proportion of the latter to every 20,000 Inhabitants; exclusive
of exempt Cities and Towns.
Province.
iSt^^l^e Population in
Miles. 1821.
Number of
Children
under Five.
Inhabitants
to each
square Mile
hhh
Children un-
der Five, in
every 20,000.
Ulster .
Leinster
Munster
Connaught
4,894 1,990,471
4,356 ! 1,5S0,2G3
5,275 1 1,747,230
4,108 ! 1,082,454
294,062
234,;i98
275,097
174,923
407
351
331
263
2,954
3,063
3.148
3,232
Here, then, the principle of population exhibits
itself as clearly as it has done in all the other coun-
tries which I have previously examined ; the fecundity
is greatest where the inhabitants are the thinnest;
§ XV. J AND THEIR REMEDIES. 377
and when we come to touch upon the comparative
condition of these provinces, the demonstration will
he the more striking, as it may certainly he assumed
as a universal fact, that, where the population is
in the easiest circumstances, the greatest proportion
of children are there preserved. The least know-
ledge of the condition of the provinces of Ireland will
suffice to enforce this ohservation, and will very
greatly strengthen the striking results the preceding
table exliibits.
(3.) As to the cities and towns of Ireland which
are distinctly given in the census, they are only eight
in number, and consequently too few to establish very
clearly the surprising fact which, as I have stated in
the Introduction, I have found to exist, in regard to
the proportionate fecundity of the towns of England,
which is, on the average_, determined by their size.
Nature, as I have observed elsewhere^ though evidently
conforming to certain absolute rules, yet rarely deve-
lopes them very clearly in individual instances ; they
are to he sought for in the results of those great and
general averages by which all her operations are usually
regulated, and by observing which her laws are alone
revealed. But^ when closely examining the popu-
lation of the hundred principal towns in England, I
hardly expected to have found the law_, referred to, in
operation as it regarded them ; nor did I conceive my
theory required it : such, however, is the fact ; and
though the secondary causes which regulate the in-
crease of mankind, from procreation only, in refer-
ence to the size of towns, are less o])vious than those
which operate in entire districts of considerabk^ extent,
378
IRELAND ; ITS EVILS,
[§
Stilly when examined in any considerable number of
cases^ they appear not the less certain^, and strengthen
the system for which I contend, by a series of minute,
as well as general proofs, which I confess have sur-
prised me as I successively discovered them.
The cities and towns in Ireland, of exempt jurisdic-
tion, are only eight in number ; hardly enough, there-
fore, to form those averages which, as it will be
observed hereafter, are necessary to arrive at certain
conclusions on the subject; but still even these show
a manifest and striking tendency to conform to the
law of human increase, as previously developed.
This will appear from the following table.
Cities and Towns.
Population.
Children under Five
to every 20,000.
Carrickfergub
under 10,009
3,251
Drojrheda
10 to 20,000
2,927
Kilkenny "]
Galway }
Waterford j
20 — 30,000
2,877
Limerick
50 — 100,000
2,875
Cork
100 — 130,000
2,817
Dublin
150 — 200,000
2,598
(4.) But to return to the provinces. The foregoing
calculations of the comparative fecundity of the four
being formed on the gross amounts which the census
furnishes of each; it may, perhaps, be said, the appa-
rent diminishing ratio of human increase exhibited, in
proportion to the condensation of the population,
may possibly be accidental ; which, in so few instances
as four, is certainly a possible, though not, as con-
nected with the previous proofs of the same fact, a
§ XV.]
AND THEIR REMEDIES.
379
very probable conjecture. But to obviate this objec-
tion altogether, I will give two other tables; and^ first,
one in which the several counties are separately calcu-
lated as before, and the mean proportion of the whole in
each province taken. Without giving these severally,
which may be done, if the facts are doubted, by a re-
ference to a succeeding table, these are the results : —
Province.
Counties form-
ing mean pro-
portion.
Inhabitants to
a Square Mile,
Irish.
Children under Five
to every 20,000.
Ulster . . .
I^einster , .
Munster . .
Connaught . .
9
12
G
5
407
35]
331
-263
2,950
3,079
.3,139
3,24S
The preceding tables, relating to the provinces, vary
very little, and either of them equally proves the im-
portant fact of prolificness being regulated as so often
stated : the difference in the number of children under
five, in Ulster, where there are upwards of four hun-
dred inhabitants on the Irish square mile, and in
Connaught, where there are only two hundred and
sixty- three in the same area, it will be observed, amounts
to ten in every hundred ; a variation, which, it hardly
need be said, must make a very great difference in the
rate of increase in those two provinces, a fact which
will be still further confirmed anon. The other two
provinces, it will have been observed, class themselves
in exact conformity with the same law of nature;
giving it a species of proof of the most minute and
satisfactory kind.
(5.) But furthermore ; it is advanced, as one of the
380 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [§ XV.
main axioms of the forthcoming work, that poverty
and privation are the great causes of a high degree
of human fecundity ; and any one acquainted, in
the least degree, with the condition of the different
parts of Ireland, must, in casting his eye on these
tables, not only perceive that they are classed in
reference to the density of their population and the
measure of their fecundity, but likewise in exact
conformity to their condition, in regard to every
thing that contributes to or constitutes prosperity and
comfort ; and that Ulster, with 407 on the square
mile, compared with Connaught, with only 264, claims
for its inhabitants an individual superiority far more
striking than the numerical one.
This important fact_, true as it regards every other
country, I must attempt fully to impress vipon the
reader's mind in reference to Ireland. Even in
that unhappy country, in which the population has
to contend with disadvantages as unnatural as they
are severe, still that district is the happiest and the
most prosperous which is the best peopled. The
proof of this gratifying fact must be obvious to all
who have seen the country, or who have informed
themselves concerning the situation and conditions of
its diiferent provinces : contrasting the most densely
peopled of these with that which is the least so, and
the difference in this respect, it will be observed, is
great. " The people of Ulster are," as Wakefield
assures us, '^ in general more industrious, better
clothed, and living in a more comfortable manner
than in many other parts of Ireland \" This is the
' Wakefield, Account of Ireland,. vol. ii. p. 730.
§ XV.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 381
best peopled province of the island ; Connaiight the
least so : of the latter, perhaps the best soil in the
island, with only a population of 162 on the square
mile, the same author elsewhere says, '^The poor
throughout Connaught live in a state of great wretch-
edness, oatmeal is a luxury which they seldom tasted"
Even Mr. Curwen, who, throughout his Irish tour,
overflows with Mr. Malthus and his demonstrations,
nevertheless distinguishes the cottiers of the north
from those of the south, as evidently superior, not-
withstanding it is quite clear that they have smaller
farms and worse land : and adds generally, " I should
conclude the people of these southern districts to
suffer more privations than those in the north ^."
But to advert to a period of general distress, as that
of all others the best calculated to put to the test
the important question relative to the comparative
condition of different parts of the country : in the
work of Drs. Baker and Cheyne, previously quoted,
we find these minutely examined and classed, for
purposes distinct from those to which I am now
applying them ; and are informed, on the result of
actual examination, that ^'^the circumstances of the
people of Ulster and Leinster are more comfortable
than in Munster and Connaught^; the great mass of
the people in the southern and western provinces
living more exclusively upon potatoes than those of
Leinster and Ulster." Here, then, we have the pro-
vinces of Ireland classed, in point of comfort and
' Wakefield, vol. i. p. 753.
•' Curwen, Obs, on the State of Ireland, vol. i. p. 367.
' Drs. Baker and Cheyne, Account of the Fever, vol. i. j). 9,).
382 IRELAND ; ITS EVILS, [^ XV.
well-being, in precise conformity with the density of
their population, and inversely to their prolificness ;
Ulster, — Leinster^ — Munster, — Connaught.
If these facts require further confirmation_, it is
at hand. In the distribution of the succour afforded
by the nation, as well as public subscription, on that
afflicting occasion, every county in Connaught, and
nearly the whole in Munster, participated, but none
in the provinces of Ulster and Leinster : consequently,
if the charity of the nation were not grossly abused
on the occasion, though doubtless the distress was
great throughout, it was so much the more urgent
where the population was the thinnest (notwith-
standing the known superiority of the soil) as to
demand and receive the whole !
(6.) And it is likewise pertinent to remark, that
another principle^ which will be found much insisted
on in the work to which I again allude, is exemplified
" in this comparative view of Ireland. It is there
asserted, and I trust proved, that a country is prospe-
rous, or otherwise, in reference to that necessity of
exertion which numbers of inhabitants call into action,
rather than from natural fertility of soil, or extent of
territory \ Ulster, which, as before observed, now
stands at the head of the provinces of Ireland, in
regard to inhabitants, though the most affluent, is,
however, ^' the most mountainous and barren part of
the kingdom^." Connaught, on the other hand, the
worst peopled, and confessedly the most wretched
part of the country, is nevertheless "^the sweetest soil
* Dr. Campbell, Historical Sketch, &c. p. 371. ^ Ihid. p. 371.
§ XV.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 383
of Ireland ^" Plenty^ therefore, is diffused; at least
that proportion of it which absenteeism allows to
remain in the country, not in proportion to the pro-
lificness of the soil, any more than the paucity of the
inhabitants, but in exactly the opposite ratio.
(7.) Presenting, therefore, the foregoing calcula-
tions and results, not as conjectures, but as incontro-
vertible facts ; not as accidents, but as the sure and
constant effects of adequate causes ; I ask those who
are proposing to thin Ireland by cleai'ances, disper-
sions, or emigrations, or by whatsoever methods,
whether they will still venture to proceed ? It is
clearly true, in respect to Ireland, as I shall show it to
be of all other countries to whose statistics I have been
enabled to appeal, that to lessen the population at any
particular time, or in any given district, by whatever
means, would, agreeably to an irreversible and bene-
volent law of nature, be the certain means of simulta-
neously increasing the prolificness of the remainder,
and that, without " room being made " for an in-
creased number of marriages, as some, who have
not examined into this singular, but universal fact, ig-
norantly suppose^ And seeing, moreover, that, even
in Ireland, as well as every where else^, the distress
* Spenser's View of Irelnnd, Works, vol. vi. p. 116.
* The proof of this singular fact forms the subject of two chapters
of the book so frequently alluded to, where it is shown to be a
universal law of nature.
^ I say every where. Thus, in North America, so confidently,
because so ignorantly, appealed to on the subject of population,
such was the case, even exclusively of the earlier periods of its
history, which, as it is well known, were those of great distress.
The full proof of this is reserved for a future occasion ; one only
instance shall be now subjoined. " The harvest hath once and again
grievously failed in these years, and we have been struck through
384 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [§ XV.
is the greatest, and ever has been, at those periods
and in those parts where the people are the fewest;
and that larger numbers there^ also, are but other
terms for a greater measure of prosperity ; on what
imaginable foundation do our theorists rest their
anti-national propositions? Presuming them igno-
rant of some of the foregoing truths, still, as the ex-
pedients to which they would resort, in order to cure
Ireland, have been tried over and over again, ages
ago, and have invariably aggravated the evils they
proposed to eradicate, why are they still persisted in,
at the expense of injuring one branch of the empire,
and outraging the feelings of the rest ? Supposing
they could reduce Ulster to the " level" of Connaught,
in point of population^ and Connaught to that of
Sutherland shire, cui bono? I repeat the question: Is
the distribution of the population of Ireland, taken in
connexion with their condition, such as to sanction
their views and arguments, or to contradict and silence
them for ever ? Even in Ireland, wretched and im-
poverished as she is, where is it that the inhabitants
make the closest approaches to a state of happiness
and prosperity, or, in a word, obtain the nearest to a
fair share in the comforts which the empire at large
administers to its people ? Where, but in Ulster, in
which, I repeat, there are 407 inhabitants on the Irish
mile. Where is it that the wretchedness is the most
conspicuous, and seems to be the most hopeless? In
Connaught_, where there are only 264, or about twenty
with terrible famine. — A lamentable cry of bread! bread! hath been
heard in our streets." — (Sermon, at Boston, September 27, 1698.
Magnalia, b.viii. p. 113.)
§ XV.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 385
acres to every family ! and wherc^ by the bye, we are
told, on indubitable authority, that the distress was at
least as great as at present, when there were twenty
acres to each individual ^ ! What is it that makes the
difference ? I answer^ in the words of one who wrote
much upon the subject, and to good purpose, had he
been attended to, — " numbers of men !" And yet
these would, had they it in their power, create, what
they are, I observe, perpetually raving about, '^ a
vacuum:" God, however, has decided for a 'plenum ;
and the inspired voice of nature and reason, as well
as of revelation, proclaims his command. Multiply —
replenish the earth ; and subdue it: and the experience
of thousands of years has taught the world, and ought
to have instructed such, that this is the only certain
road to national prosperity, as well as individual
happiness.
But to return to the arithmetic proofs which Ire-
land affords of the truth of the principle of popula-
tion, so frequently asserted, and of which I wish to
leave an undisturbed impression in the mind of the
reader : —
(8.) There is yet a more strict method by which to
put that principle to the test, than the one previously
adopted, and one which Avill obviate the only objec-
tion which, as I can imagine, can be advanced against
the foregoing results. It may be supposed that the
different habits which obtain in the several provinces
of Ireland, may have some considerable effect in pro-
' Dr. Smith, Topographical Hist., pp.75, 76. He exclaims, "Is
it not amazing, that the most fertile part of Ireland, washed by so
noble a river as the Shannon, cannot support its people with bread !"
2C
386 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [§XV.
(lucing the facts in question : such, for instance, as the
supposition that marriages take place earlier in one
part than another, or other circumstances which may
affect an extensive district, without extending over the
entire country. In order to meet this remark, and to
adopt the only remaining method of determining the
point, and thus to ascertain, beyond any reasonable
doubt, the absolute certainty of the principle already
demonstrated by other and diiferent modes of calcula-
tion, I shall, lastly, class the several counties of Ireland
in the order in which the density of the population in
each places them, without any reference whatever to the
four grand provincial divisions of the country: and for
the sake of comparison with the counties of England,
which will be subsequently given, where the same
important principle is developed by a totally different
method, I shall give the inhabitants in the English
square mile, and likewise calculate the number of
acres to each individual, and divide the table accor-
dingly. It will be instantly seen that the law of popu-
lation conforms (though perhaps in a less striking and
marked degree, for reasons previously given) to the
principle already laid down, and which will be shown
to exist in all other countries where the necessary facts
for proving it are recorded.
^XV.J
AND THEIR REMEDIES.
387
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388 IRELAND ; ITS EVILS, [§ XV.
The preceding table requires no comments. Taken
promiscuously from all the provinces of Ireland, and
consequently leaving no room for the suspicion that
local habits, in reference to the age of marriage, or
any variation in modes of life, can at all affect the
conclusions, the counties are classed according to the
density of their population respectively, which^ as it
will be observed, mingles the provinces throughout,
and, consequently, the governing principle of human
fecundity is the more satisfactorily developed. These,
then, are the results. Where the inhabitants are from
one to two hundred on the square mile (English),
there the mean number of children, under five, to
every 20,000 of the entire population, is 3,132 : where
there are from two to three hundred on the same
space, that number diminishes to 3,065 ; where from
three to four hundred, to 3,043 ; where four hundred
and upwards_, 2,950 is the proportion. Or, to present
the facts calculated on a somewhat different basis,
where there is only from one to two acres of land to
every single individual, the children under five ave-
rage only 2,981 ; where there are from two to three
acres_, that average increases to 3,079 ; where from
three to four acres, to 3,091, and, where four and
upwards, it rises to 3,177.
(9.) Only two objections can, as I conceive, be
brought against the preceding facts being finally con-
clusive of the argument, even had I appealed, in the
course of my work, to none other. The first may be
founded on the apparent aberrations, in particular
cases, from the principle asserted ; to exemplify which,
the different proportions are purposely exhibited in
§ XV.1 AND THEIR REMEDIES. 389
the preceding table. To this objection I have else-
where particularly adverted ; Nature^, in all her works,
vegetable or animal, seems to abhor minute and
servile exactnesses, and yet she accomplishes her pur-
poses more perfectly and certainly than is ever done
by the utmost uniformity of human operations. Dr.
Dugald Stewart has a fine passage on this subject,
and notices, in exemplification, the uncertainty of
the number of the sexes, diiferent families being
singly considered, and yet the surprising accuracy
with which she accomplishes her purpose on the
totality of her operations \ He notices, however,
that we must be in possession of an adequate number
of instances, before we can observe with sufficient
accuracy her laws. It is thus that I account for the
surprising circumstance, that the principle of popula-
tion now developed has escaped, as far as I know, all
writers on the subject. Fixing their attention on in-
dividual cases, they have omitted to regard a sufficient
number of such in connection with each other; or,
doing so, have often perceived them to vary consi-
derably, and have, therefore, failed to draw those con-
clusions from the records of human existence, which,
as far as I have examined, they invariably furnish.
(10.) But a second objection to this principle of
population, as proved from the census of Ireland,
will, I am persuaded, be the one chiefly relied upon.
It is this ; that the greater the density of the popula-
tion, the more the preventive check, as it is called,
prevails. I must forewarn those who may read, and,
perhaps, make some comments on this book, that
' Dr. Stewart, Philosophy of the Human Mind.
390 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [§ ^^
they must seek for some other objection than this ;
for that point has been examined fully, and, in all
cases, directly the contrary is the fact. This is a
matter not to be determined, where the necessary
documents exist, as they do in many countries, by
reasoning upon it ; one way or the other, it is a mat-
ter of fact, and not a matter of argument. Arithmetic
must decide it ; not that simple rule by which Mr.
Malthus determines it in his own favour ; who, rest-
ing his whole hopes of his system on the alleged
increase of this check (knowing, as he acknowledges,
that the " positive " ones have declined), calculates its
prevalence by simply dividing the population by the
number of the marriages, and if these happen to be
in a somewhat smaller apparent proportion than for-
merly (which, however, is rarely the case), he reckons
the point settled: totally leaving out of his consi-
deration the great increase which has, in the interim,
taken place, in the expectation of human life, as it is
called, which must occasion a corresponding increase
in the co-existing population from the same number
of births. Just in the same manner, in calculating
the comparative prevalence of this check, in different
countries, he has quite forgotten that the duration of
human life, which varies so materially (in some of
them as much as one third, taking his own authority),
is an essential ingredient in the calculation. By
losing sight of this, it is singular that the order of
merit in which he has placed several different coun-
tries, in reference to their supposed observance of this
" virtue," ought to be precisely reversed. It is sur-
prising how he could have fallen into so egregious an
§ XV. J AND THEIR REMEDIES. 391
error ; it is^ however, essential to his entire theory,
and its rectification, were there no other disproof of it,
will shake it to its foundation. More on this subject I
shall not add at present ; it will be examined at large
elsewhere : I will only remark, by way of illustration,
that, supposing we were to calculate the prevalence of
the preventive check for a nation of antediluvians, sta-
tionary in numbers, and living to the age of a millen-
nium each ; one annual marriage, it is evident, could
only take place in every two thousand of the inhabi-
tants ; though every soul of them should enter into that
state, and, consequently, *^ moral restraint," as it is face-
tiously denominated, should have no existence whatever
amongst them. But to return: I shall now simply
assert that marriages are not proportionably more
frequent where the population is the most scanty, but
the reverse ; and shall, in due time, produce a body of
uniform and uninterrupted facts, in proof of my de-
claration, which will render it indisputable.
But the mortality, especially in infant life, which
prevails in a particular degree, where distress is the
most prevalent, must not be lost sight of, in adverting
to the preceding documents — a fact which will ma-
terially strengthen the conclusions already drawn
from them, if that can be necessary.
(11.) So far, I think, the argument is triumphant as
to Ireland. But I have been enabled, as it respects
other countries, to give historical proof of the prin-
ciple for which 1 contend, and this I conceive to be
one of the most interesting and important of its de-
monstrations. Ireland is a country where the popu-
lation has probably fluctuated more than most others,
392 IRELAND; ITS EVIIJ5, [§ XV.
and, as such, must furnish a proof of this nature, if
the principle be true, of a very minute and interesting
kind, supposing- we were in possession of the neces-
sary data. During the course of this inquiry, I have
cast my eye on such, and instantly put them to the
test ; with what success the following facts must de-
termine.
Dr. Anderson has transcribed, in his Commercial
Dictionary ^, a printed list of the families in each of
the four provinces of Ireland about the year 1733 ;
which, according to the mode of enumeration then
adopted, and corroborated by the statement of Dr.
Maul, then bishop of Dromore_, amounted to the
following number of persons in each : — in Leinster,
653,020 ; in Munster, 614,654 ; in Ulster, 505,395 ;
and in Connaught, 242,160; which give in the first
province 150 on the square mile ; in the second 116 ;
in the third 104 ; and in the last 59. According to
the principle of population for which I contend, the
prolificness would be the greatest where the numbers
on an equal space were the fewest ; and consequently
the increase, in such cases, the largest. Now it must
be remarked, that the order in which these provinces
then ranked, in reference to density of population, was
almost directly the reverse to that in which they stand
at present. If, therefore, through the intervening
period of nearly ninety years, the increase has con-
formed to the law of population laid down, it will cer-
tainly amount to an additional proof of its reality and
truth, of a singularly satisfactory character; as show-
ing that that law acts upon a principle totally distinct
' Anderson, Commercial Diet. vol. i. p. 98.
§XV.J
AND THEIR REMEDIES.
393
from any local peculiarities whatsoever. And such
turns out to be the fact. To exhibit this^ in the follow-
ing table : the first column gives the population in
the four provinces of Ireland in 1733 ; the second the
number of Irish square miles in each ; the third, the
inhabitants on each of these at the above period ;
the fourth^ the number of inhabitants in IS21 ;
and the last column gives the result sought for^ that
is^ the additions in each province, during that period,
on every hundred inhabitants. The table^ it will
be observed, is arranged according to the compara-
tive density of the population^ at the former period.
Provinces.
Population
in 1733.
Square
Wiles.
Pop. toeMch^ Population in
Increase on
every 100.
Leinster | G53,020
Mu lister i 614,654
Ulster 1 505,395
Connaught 242,160
4356
5275
4S94
4108
150 1,757,492
116 ! 1,935,612
104 1 1,998,494
59 ! 1,110,229
169
215
295
358
Here again no comments are necessary. In Lein-
ster, where there were at the former date one hun-
dred and fifty in the square mile, the increase, during
the period under examination^ was one hundred and
sixty-nine on every hundred; whereas, in Connaught^
where there were only fifty-nine, the increase was more
than double the former, and amounted to three hun-
dred and fifty-eight. The remaining provinces, I need
not point out, confirm the principle most exactly, and
class themselves accordingly.
Mr. Ricardo lays it down as an axiom, in full con-
formity with Mr. Malthus's views on the same sub-
ject, that " population regulates itself by the funds
whicb are to employ it, and therefore always increases
394 IRELAxND ; ITS EVILS, [§ ^V.
or diminishes with the increase or diminution ol
capital^:" — a position which may be pronounced to
be as false in theory as it is in fact ; in a word, as
opposite to the plain truth, in every point of view, as
anything which pohtical economy, which is constantly
repeating it, has as yet uttered. It contradicts every
physiological observation that has been made upon
man, from the time of Hippocrates down to the present
day, as well as the whole current of human experience.
From the summit of Irish society — its peerage, to its
lowest grade — the poor cottager of Connaught, the
reverse of this confident assertion is the precise truth.
But, notwithstanding the ease with which proofs are
dispensed with in the present day, and the audacious-
ness with which known facts are silenced or contra-
dicted, to serve the purposes of our special political
pleaders, — still I hardly think it will be maintained by
any, that it has been to the superior plenty and pros-
perity of Connaught, compared with Leinster, that
this vastly greater increase of the former is to be attri-
buted. On the contrary, it was, and still remains, the
most wretched part of Ireland; and its condition, there-
fore, fully confirms the physiology of my system, and
contradicts as decisively that to which I stand opposed.
Should it be objected that the period in question is
so extended as to have gradually changed the relative
density of the population of these provinces, and that
consequently the demonstration is so far confused and
unsatisfactory, — I will, to obviate this remaining ob-
jection (as I confess it to have some weight till duly
examined), appeal to the increase of the different pro-
' Ricardo, Principles of Polit. Econ. p. 68.
§ XV']
AND THEIR REiMEDIES.
395
vinces during about a third of that time, namely, a
period of exactly thirty years, especially as, at its com-
mencement (1791), the change alluded to had already
taken place. Taking, then, the last enumeration of
Thomas Wray, Esq., inspector-general of the hearth-
money, the following table will exhibit the movements
of the population in the several provinces ; and again
illustrate and prove, with singular exactness, the prin-
ciple of human increase for which I am contending.
I have again classed the provinces according to their
relative density of population, that having, at the period
referred to, become greatly changed.
Province.
Population in
1791.
Inhabitants on
a Square Mile,
Jrish.
Population in
1821.
Increase on
every 100.
Ulster 1,337,274
Leinster 1,111,512
Munster 1,161,138
Connau^ht 593,688
273
255
145
1,998,494
1,757,492
1,9.35,612
1,110,229
49
58
66
86
That the former of the columns of population of
1791 errs in deficiency, I think there can be no doubt
whatever, when it is considered that it was founded
upon fiscal data ; this one cause, independently of
others which Mr. Newenham has pointed out, com-
pels us to believe that the assumed number of inha-
bitants in 1791 is short of the truth. But as the
causes of such incorrectness, and more especially the
motives of concealment, whatever they were, must
have been equally operative in every part of the coun-
try, the deductions, as far as my argument is con-
cerned, are equally conclusive. They prove that, on
the very same ground, the measure of human increase,
individually considered, is constantly regulated by the
396 IRELAND ; ITS EVILS^ [§ XV.
existing numbers, and varies with every variation of
the latter. Equally certain is it, that, in each of the
periods I have been alluding to, superiority in condi-
tion has still accompanied that district which has be-
come the most numerously peopled. This is a prin-
ciple, indeed, which lies at the foundation of human
society, and pervades the whole structure even to its
loftiest pinnacle. Like the infancy of human beings, is
that of the communities they form, scattered, ignorant,
and weak ; but the Deity, who wills our happiness, and
whose providence promotes it, has provided an inhe-
rent cure for these evils in the growth of their num-
bers : as these multiply, they increase in knowledge
and prosperity and power, till they wax into mighty
nations ; nor has there been an example of a country
upon earth, in the possession of its natural advantages,
where it has been otherwise.
(12.) Some observations, suggested by the last
tables, I will subjoin, especially as so much is now
said about the certainty of mankind doubling every
iive-and-twenty years, if unchecked; a supposition,
by-the-bye, which I have elsewhere demonstrated to
be impossible, by a series of tables, constructed upon
the very data of human prolificness and mortality,
given by those who pronounce it to be so far within
the compass of natural increase. We find, by the last
table, that, even supposing the population of 1791 to
be fully given, still in thirty years an increase of sixty-
one only, on every hundred, had taken place ; and this
increase of such a nature, and so distributed, as plainly
to show that even that ratio will diminish as the po-
pulation condensates. Oh, but (methinks 1 hear the
§ XV.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 397
assertors of the superfecimdity of the human race ex-
claim) you forget the checks! What checks^ I ask?
Not the direct ones^ as they are called, such as
emigration; that has been authoritatively pronounced
to be " immaterial." Not war ; that has ceased. Not
infanticide; that never did prevail amongst this simple
people. Not those unnameable offences which natu-
rally flow from the discountenance of matrimony, and
the substitution of " moral restraint," as it is facetiously
denominated : no ! such they have ever held in abhor-
rence. The preventive check has no place here ; for
we have it on the great authority himself, that " they
propagate like brute beasts," and these, it is conceived,
do not much regard it. It has, therefore, no existence
whatsoever, according to their own showing ; and, in
proof of this, they appeal to the increase of the popula-
tion there^ compared with that of England. I accept
this appeal. The population of Ireland has increased, in
thirty years (even taking the estimate of 179 1 to be com-
plete), 61 per centum: the increase in the population
of England, for a like term, supposing it to augment
from 1821 to 1831, as it has done from 1811 to 1821,
will amount to 55 per centum. In other words, every
hundred individuals in England will, in the course of
those thirty years, have multiplied into 155, as in
Ireland they have into 161 ; a difference, on the whole,
of about 3^ per cent., to be distributed through the
space of thirty years ; a difference sufficient, indeed,
to establish the principle for which I contend, con-
nected with other circumstances, but hardly amount-
ing, I think, to an apology for all the hard speeches
which have been uttered against the population of
398 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [§XV.
Ireland^ or the harder propositions which are made
about repressing it, which now insult the feehngs of
the empire, and which, thank God^ manifest as much
ignorance of the rules of arithmetic, as they do of the
laws of nature. — Again, if we still go back four-and-
twenty years, which we are enabled to do by the same
official documents, those of the hearth-money col-
lectors, we find the population of the year 1767
amounting to 2^544,276; in 1791, on the same au-
thority (and consequently, for the purposes of com-
parison, more satisfactory than any other), it was, as
has been seen, 4,206,612. But this is an increase
of above 65 per centum, and in 24 years only^
instead of 61, that which took place during the
latter 30 years. Before this period, the increase,
resting principally upon private documents, does not
appear to have been so rapid ; which is perfectly con-
sistent with my views of the effect of those vast emi-
grations then going on, in comparison with the num-
ber of the inhabitants ; and likewise those sweeping
mortalities and famines which formerly afflicted Ire-
land so deeply. For the last half century, however,
the ratio of the increase in Ireland, notwithstanding
the panic which has seized our anti-populationists,
has been a greatly diminishing one; fiiUy confirming,
therefore, the preceding principle.
(13.) And I must further observe, that this in-
crease in Ireland (small as it is, compared with that
duplication, every five-and-twenty years, for which
our theorists absurdly contend, making sixteen times
as many people at the termination of every century as
there were at its commencement) is not likely to be
§ XV.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 399
continued : the same cause, pointed out elsewhere, in
reference to England, which has occurred since 1801,
and given a sudden and extraordinary advance to the
population there, namely, the introduction of vaccina-
tion, having operated on that of Ireland, during the
same term. Allowing the small-pox to have been the
severe scourge represented, it must be quite obvious
to the simplest arithmetician, that the relative increase
cannot be continued, excepting some other discovery,
equally efficient in the preservation of human life
should be again made, which is not very likely, nor,
indeed, possible ; for there is no remaining disease so
fatal to it, as the one thus extirpated. In comparing
the population of 1801, thinned as it was by this pest,
and that of 1821, which is freed from it, we must
certainly find a much larger relative increase, than
can possibly occur between 1821 and 1841, other
things remaining the same. Precisely the same rea-
soning applies, though not in an equal degree, to the
effect which the great improvement in longevity
throughout Europe must have had in accumulating a
larger co-existing population from the same number
of births, than could have been the case before it took
place. This consideration, also, ought to warn us
against taking the ratio of increase generated by a
comparison of two periods, so dissimilar in particulars
most essential to the calculation : nothing but a con-
tinual increase in the duration of human life, so as to
realize the reveries of one of the French philosophers,
who imagined that man might at length survive
mortality, could justify such com])utations. I see
Mr. Finlayson calculates (erroneously, I think) the
400 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [§ ^V-
increase in the mean duration of life at full one-
third ; but as this improvement includes the effect
of vaccination, its ratio cannot possibly continue.
Enough has been said, to show that the relative in-
crease which has taken place, both in England and
Ireland, and, indeed, throughout Europe, during the
present century, will not probably be maintained ; at
all events, that, as yet, we are totally unauthorised to
calculate upon such a result. In estimating, there-
fore, the future ratio of increase from that which has
taken place between 1801 and 1821, we are compar-
ing cases which are not parallel ; nothing could be so
absurd as such a calculation, if transferred to mecha-
nical philosophy ; even in logic it would instantly be
rejected as one of the most palpable fallacies, as
urging a ?ion tali pro tali; and still the pohtical
sophists of Europe, one and all, confidently calculate
the future ratio of human increase by this necessarily
fallacious method.
I might add greatly to the force of the preceding
observations, by proving that the census of 1801, which
is made the radix of these erroneous calculations, was
grossly deficient ; but the proof of this important fact
is reserved for a further opportunity.
(14.) Mr. Malthus, indeed, shortly after the intro-
duction of vaccination, asserted, that either the pro-
portion of marriages must diminish, or that some
other " drain," as, I think, he terms ;it, of mortality
must be opened ; rendering, in my humble opinion,
had his prognostications been true, vaccination a
very doubtful blessing ; but directly the contrary is,
happily, the fact : health has greatly improved, and
§ XV.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 401
marriages have actually multiplied, since that period, in
a most striking degree : in proof of which, I must
again beg leave to refer to calculations already made,
and about to be published ; when the periods of
duplication^ on which so much stress is laid at pre-
sent, by the principle 1 am opposing, will be shown
to be physical impossibilities. I make these frequent
allusions, whether judicious or otherwise, with the
sole view of anticipating, in some measure, the pos-
sible objections of the reader, by assuring him that, in
the system of population partly developed in this
publication, particular arguments have been else-
where pursued, and objections answered, which it was
not practicable, either in the space or time which I
allow myself in my present attempt, to attend to.
(15.) It may, perhaps, be expected that some
notice should be taken of the incomplete census of
1813 : about one-third, however, of the thirty-two
counties which Ireland comprises are returned in it
as deficient ; and it is therefore more than probable
that the rest were very imperfectly enumerated. Great
obstacles were, doubtless, interposed against taking
a correct account of the population on that occasion,
it being the first attempt of the kind ; and the num-
bers obtained through other official channels are,
doubtless, on the whole, more correct. Still, how-
ever, as it is probable that, in the counties in which
the measure was apparently successful, the deficiency
was proportionate, we will lastly try whether the
facts it presents are conformable, or otherwise, to
the principle laid down, and, I trust, fully proved
l)v tlu^ ))r(H'cdin£i- calculations.
•J n
402
IKELAND; ITS EVILS,
[§ XV.
The succeeding table needs no explanation, being
constructed on the same principle as those already
given.
TABLE, showing the Comparative Increase in the Four Provinces of
Ireland, from 1813 to 1821, calculated on the Twenty-two Counties
enumerated in 1813.
Province.
Inhabitants
to a square
Mile, 1821.
Population,
1813.
Population,
1821.
Increase
per Cent.
Ulster
Leinster ....
Munster ....
Connaught . . .
251
216
204
162
1,207,448
837,951
1,273,149
489,576
1,349,698
979,616
1,523,798
626,626
11
16
20
28
3,808,124
4,484,738
17
This table exhibits an increase of about two per
cent, per annum ; far too minute a ratio to call for any
interference with nature, I think, at present ; espe-
cially looking to the imperfect cultivation of the
country, which a more liberal application of manual
labour would render so much more productive, and the
immense extent of surface still untouched. But inas-
much as the first of the two censuses was avowedly
and greatly deficient, no such annual increase as two
per cent, has taken place, — certainly far short of it ;
consequently the meditated attempt is still less justi-
fiable, and is in the highest degree impertinent.
To show, once more, that local habits or cus-
toms are not the causes which govern the variations
in this law of human increase, the following table is
lastly subjoined, in which the counties are classed,
not under their respective provinces, but according
to the number of statute acres which, in 1813, there
were in each to every individual inhabitant.
§ XV.]
AND THEIR REMEDIES.
403
TABLE, showing- the Comparative Increase, in Eig-ht Years, of the
Population of twenty-two Counties of Ireland, calculated on the Cen-
suses of 1813 and 1821, classed according to the Number of Acres to
each Inhabitant.
Counties.
Provinces.
Acres to
each inhab
in 813.
Population
in 1813.
Population
iu 1821.
Increase
percent.
Down
Ulster
2
287,290
325,410
Mona^han
Ibid.
2.1
140,433
174,697
Longford
Leinster
2..?
95,917
107,570
Londonderry
Ulster
2.8
186,181
193,869
Antrim
Tyrone
Ibid.
Ulster
2.9
3
231,548
262,863
13
941,369
1,064,406
250,746
261,865
Tipperary
Miinsler
3.1
290,531
346,896
Car low
r^einsler
3.2
69,566
78,952
Cork
Munster
.S.2
523,936
629,786
Queen's Co.
Leinster
3 3
113,857
134,275
Waterford
Munster
3.5
119,457
127,842
Roscommon
Connaught
3.5
158,110
208,729
Kilkenny
Leinster
3.6
134,664
158,716
Meath
King's Co.
Ibid.
Leinster
3.7
4
142,479
159,183
16
1,803,346
2,106,241
113,226
131,088
Fermanagh.
Ulster
4.1
111,250
130,997
Leitrim
Connaught
4.4
94,095
124,785
Kildare
Leinster
4.5
85,133
99,065
Clare
Mayo
Munster
Connaught
4.8
5.4
160,603
208,089
22
564,307
694,02 4
237,371
293,112
Kerrv
Munster
5.8
178,622
216,185
Wicklow
-
Leinster
6
83,109
110,767
24
499.102
620,064
This table, again, requires no comment, and is the
last that will be given ; indeed, I am not aware that
there is now any species of existing proofs, of which
the principle at issue is susceptible, that has been
omitted. I shall conclude my appeal to these docu-
ments, by observing, that to suppose the results thus
derived from so many different and independent
sources, all minutely and uniformly confirming the
principle of population developed in these pages, to
be purely accidental, would be to make rather too
2 D 2
404 IRELAND ; ITS EVILS, [§ XV.
large a demand upon the doctrine of ehpnces^ and
rise into a much greater miracle^ than believing them
to be a part of that simple law of relation which per-
vades all nucure, and by which an infinitely wise and
powerful Being plainly accomplishes the purposes of
his eterni ' and immutable benevolence.
(16.) Ireland, therefore, I must repeat, is no excep-
tion to the true principle of human increase ; a prin-
ciple which, no more than the one that it opposes,
can ever remain inert, and, like that, may be " known
by its fruits." It dictates to the feelings, and prompts
the exertions of all who receive it. Demonstrably
true, even as it respects Ireland, so it holds forth
the most instructive lesson as it regards that country.
It teaches those who have to do with its affairs, or
who wish to dictate to and intermeddle with those
that have ; a far surer, as well as happier method of
serving and blessing that country, than either trans-
porting the people, driving them from their farms,
deserting them in their distresses, or diminishing their
numbers, by any plans of cruelty or oppression, an-
cient or modern. It proves the utter futility of all
such attempts, and that the law of nature is universal ;
the same as it respects the Irish, and, indeed, all
other people, as it was with the Israelites, who " the
more they were afflicted, the more they multi-
plied and grew ;" and that the way of diminishing
the fecundity of the Irish is not by the creation of
vacuums, but by replenishing those already made, by
the deserters and enemies of their country. As this
true principle of human increase is understood, and
prevails, feelings of confidence in an all-sufficient Pro-
§ XV.J AND THEIR REMEDIES. 405
vidence will be strengthened, and of cordial affection
for our fellow-creatures revived ; and benevolence,
no longer paralyzed by the influences of the contrary
theory, will renew its wonted exertions in behalf of
human beings, in the way God and nature have here-
tofore dictated and blessed. Even policy itself may
at length be pleased to think, that what it never can,
and nature perpetually does, regulate, may be regu-
lated for the best ; and, dropping its dread of popu-
lation, concede, at length, that to do justly and love
mercy is the best and safest course for nations, as
well as individuals ; and that the surest way to pre-
serve a people in peace and quietness, is to give
them a permanent interest in the institutions of their
country.
Instead, therefore, of adopting the measures now
proposed, and recommended, indeed, a century ago,
let us pursue a more natural, humane, and patriotic
course. In the mean time let us speak less, and legis-
late not at all, against those poor labourers, who, being-
deprived of the work and bread that naturally belongs
to them and to their country, pursue them to this ;
and who meritoriously take the proceeds of their hard
earnings to their own domestic hearths, — a conduct
that combines the very opposites of all the vices with
which they are perpetually charged. Irish vagrants !
Who are the real, culpable vagrants, ye imperial legis-
lators, about whom ye ought to bestir yourselves ?
(17.) Surely, Ireland, last of all countries upon
earth, ought not to permit its people to starve from
want of food, or sufter for want of employment. Re-
specting the former, its surplus produce, even now,
406 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [§ X^'-
is probably greater than that of any other country in
the world of equal extent ; and its surface might, on
the very lowest calculations which our practical agri-
culturists have ever made_, sustain far above ten times
the number of inhabitants that it now nearly starves ;
while " the wastes of the sea/' to repeat Lord Bacon's
expression, by which it is encircled, remain almost
totally untouched. Demand for labour is, however,
wanted, in order to accomplish any amelioration in
the country; and that can never be obtained while
the means of its remuneration are withdrawn, as well
as the necessity destroyed, to so great an extent, by
absenteeism ; inflicting all those wrongs which have
been the painful subject of consideration in the former
pages of this publication. It is this grand evil, and the
want of a national provision for the poor, which its con-
duct renders the more necessary, to which much of the
distress and turbulence of Ireland has been distinctly
traced. Surely that country presents a noble field for
the exertions of the real patriot ; there he might
build himself an everlasting monument: the imperish-
able materials are at hand. Its natural capacities are
unrivalled ; so are those of its people ; though both
lie uncultured, abandoned, abused ! In the character
of its inhabitants there are the elements of whatever
is elevated and noble ; these, however borne down and
hidden, are indicated wherever their development is
not rendered impossible. Their courage in the field
needs no panegyric of mine, and has never been sur-
passed; their charity^, notwithstanding their poverty,
' See Young, Newenham, &c. Report of Select Committee, iii.
pp. 415, 453.
§ XV.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 407
never equalled; even while I am thus writing, I will
dare to assert, that, in many a cabin of that country,
the god-like act of our immortal Alfred, which will
be transmitted down to the remotest generations, the
dividing his last meal with the beggar, is this instant
being repeated. And their gratitude for kindnesses
received, equals the ready warmth with which they are
ever conferred. In the domestic sphere, according to
their humble means, they are unrivalled in fidelity
and affection. I mean not to contend^ that they have
not faults, and grievous ones ; but these are mainly
attributable to the condition to which they have been
reduced, and the manner in which they have been so
long treated. They, perhaps, mirabile dictii, feel no
strong affection for those of their superiors, whom they
rarely see, or see but too often to be insulted \ — but
whom they are perpetually feeling ; nor attachment to a
government which they identify with their oppressors.
But let them be treated as, it is confessed and de-
clared on all hands, they ought to be : let their natural
patrons and protectors return to them, not '^ for a short
time," as exactors and '^ drivers," but, permanently,
as kind and resident landlords ; let labour be fostered
and encouraged ; let want be relieved, and life pre-
served, by a moderated system of poor-laws, which
shall concede those humble claims to all, which God
and Nature have immutably established, and which
policy itself has long sanctioned'^ : in a word, let the
'These may be considered as strong expressions: a different
opinion will be entertained by those who have had many opportuni-
ties of personal observation. See Arthur Young's Tonr in Ireland,
"Oppression," pp. '29, 30, Appendix.
' While I am writing, an article is pointed out to me in the last
408 IRELAND ; ITS EVILS, [§ XV.
different ranks resume their equally essential stations,
(iach performing their several duties ; and the social
numbers of an influential work, the Christian Observer, in which
1 greatly regret to find an attack is made, and in no very mea-
sured terms, upon our national charity. It commences by
informing us, in effect, that, if it is not mistaken, there is no
national provision for the poor enforced by law in any country but
Britain, excepting Iceland. It is mistaken ; and, knowing only
thus much of the subject, it is a pity that so long an article has
been written upon it, in which errors as to facts, and, as it strikes
me, in principles also, quite as glaring as this, occur throughout.
I shall not refer again to the best part of Protestant Europe, and
America, which have that legal provision ; or to the condition
of those countries which are still without it ; or to our own pre-
viously to its establishment ; or to the practice of the primitive
Church (as far as they had the power), in reference to it ; but again
appeal to a higher and overwhelming authority in favour of the prin-
ciple of a compulsory provision, now so much abused, and which
it is proposed to destroy like another *' Carthage." The Mosaic
dispensation embodies that legal and compulsory provision in its
divine institutions ; which, and voluntary charity, God hath there
joined together, whoever may now attempt to put them asunder as
absurd and irreconcilable. — See Selden, Schultens, Maimonides,
&c., upon this point. And when it is considered that that system,
thus dictated by an unchangeable God, forms not a part of the cere-
monial, but of the moral code, not one jot or tittle of which is mu-
table ; that it appertaineth to that virtue which *' never faileth," the
arguments, or, as they may rather be called, declamations, against
our system, which apply as fully to that established by the Deity,
are really somewhat bold, if not presumptuous. After such an appeal,
I shall not descend to minor arguments, otherwise the intolerable
burden the proposed abrogation of the poor-laws would impose
upon the willing part of the community, not the most numerous,
and not often the most wealthy (religion instructs us to the con-
trary, in both respects), and the demand it would make upon
the time, and especially upon the entire resources of such, would
have the effect of drying up the founts of many of those foreign
charities of the country which the work in question has so long
patronized, and of intercepting much private beneficence now hap-
pily administered ; above all, after having robbed poverty of that
decent provision which it has long enjoyed, and which is its legal
rights it would, to the equal disgrace both of the rich and the poor,
sentence the latter to the degradation of subsisting upon the pre-
carious relief obtained too often by abject and repeated supplica-
tions, and by distressing and disgusting exhibitions ; with a swarm
of other evils inseparable from mendicancy. But this work, I
perceive, is turning its attention to modern political economy, the
unrighteous Mammon, whose cause, however, I think it will
§xv.]
AND THEIR REMEDIES. 409
edifice, thus " compact together and at unity in itself,"
shall never again be shaken. These are the means, sim-
find difficult to reconcile with its former and more elevated service.
It is now, I perceive, boldly espousing the most nauseous of the
notions of that school. " The poor laws," it seems, " call a mul-
titude of population into existence ;" the " redundancy" of human
beings is confidently asserted ; a doctrine which, however fair in
front, like Milton's Sin, enwombs a brood of consequences which
are too loathsome to be described. Redundant ! how can any
one talk in the ears of the Deity thus, who believes in His
superintending providence ; in human redemption, general or
particular ; in the immortality and infinite worth of the human
soul ! We are little qualified, 1 fear, to decide on the rights
of the poor, or their relief, when we approach the subject
with the principles such language involves. The effects of these
are obvious, and are, indeed, rarely disguised ; and are not to be
counteracted, by plentifully calling such " redundants," after all,
*' our brothers and sisters in Christ Jesus," and so forth. It is
language like this, connected with such views, that *' sweet religion
makes a rhapsody of words." There may be, no doubt, a mote
in the eye of poverty ; but it may be questioned whether any class
amongst us is justified, at the present, in paying its first attention
to plucking it out. The legislature, I perceive, is called upon to
destroy this " Carthage," as the writer in question denominates
our national charity. It will, however, be more wise, I think, than
to make the attempt. One thing in this article has, however,
given me much pleasure ; the great unpopularity of any oppo-
sition to the poor-laws of England is expressed and implied
throughout. Let us be told no more, then, that the provision for the
poor is not a voluntary charity ; it is such, nationally speaking,
to all intents and purposes, even on the plain admissions of its
impugners. As to the individual merit connected with the sys-
tem, its advocates cheerfully resign, and are willing to forget it.
But to repress further observations for the present, — I will
only ask who that has seen its operation in this great manufactur-
ing country, where the wages of labour, in many branches at
least, are so unfortunately low, and where its demand is subject to
such great and sudden fluctuations and reversals, but must in-
stantly subscribe to its necessity } His Majesty's ministers said,
during the great, and, as some asserted, unexampled manufac-
turing distresses of 1826, that the national charity was the proper
organ of relief, and they said truly. While I am thus writing, a
document appears, accompanied by observations as to the sup-
posed alarming increase of the poor rates at present, which gives
nie mingled surprise and pleasure. All notice of the latter will
be rendered totally unnecessary by a few ren)arks on the former.
The account is made up for a year, ending March 25, 1827, and
410 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [§ XV.
pie and obvious, though deprecated by inveterate sel-
fishness, and ridiculed by theoretic folly, which would,
consequently refers to the very period of distress alluded to, and
which cannot be forgotten. The sums expended on the poor, the
unemployed as well as impotent, amounted, it appears, to only
6,441,088/.; including the immense sums paid in the shape of
wages, of which wealth actually robs poverty, to return it again
in alms, accompanied with threatenings and insults. But, waiving
this important consideration altogether, this is the fifteenth suc-
cessive year in which these accounts have been published ; and,
behold ! the expense of sustaining the suffering poor, in this year,
distressful and gloomy almost beyond all precedent, was less than
the average of the whole of these years ! It was considerably
less than the first of them, though the population had certainly
increased, in the interim, 20 or 30 per cent. ! Somewhat advanced,
indeed, compared with the " prosperity*' year ; still it was less by
above 20 per cent, than it was nine or ten years before ! In the
name, then, of humanity, of justice, and of truth, if such feel-
ings and principles are still extant upon earth, let us hear no
more mendacious appeals as to the relative increase of the poor-
rates. Supposing, 1 repeat, we were to calculate the increase of
other national statistical amounts in the manner we do the sums
disbursed in behalf of poverty, what would be the conclusion we
should arrive at ? Why, that the county rates, for instance, would
" absorb," and in no long time, the entire property of the country,
and that every individual of us would speedily become felons !
Such calculations would be sufficiently absurd, if applied to these
particulars ; they are worse than absurd as applied to poverty ;
they are palpably false ! Those who profess to attend more
to the numbers than to the expense of the poor, are still wilder
in their calculations. " A quarter" — " nearly half" — '* larger
half" — *' seven eighths," &c., are the^propoition of paupers. The
poor are, in the mouth of such, what " the rogues in buckram
suits" were in that of Sir John Falstaff, always exaggerated and
still multiplying; and the allusion holds good yet further, — for
while they are bemoaning over the spread of pauperism, and pro-
phesying that they shall be swallowed up by it, their own increas-
ing size often affords them a tolerably good security against that
danger. Their " sighing and grief blows them up like a bladder."
Some of our calculators, however, I observe, are diminishing
their estimates concerning pauperism, and, amongst the rest, Mr.
Malthus: a quarter of a century ago he had it " the larger half"
(p. 536); now he quietly substitutes, I perceive, "one quarter," (5th
edit. vol. iii. p. 416.) This looks well, but hardly comports with
his ideas concerning the poor's soon absorbing all the rents, &c.
While concluding this note, I receive a little work, forwarded to
me, on some of the topics discussed in the preceding pages, but on
§ XV.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 411
and in no long time, renovate Ireland, and repay the
wrongs of many generations ; which would waken a
nation into gladness, and spread a smile over the face
of nature itself. The benevolence of the great would
then be reflected in the thankful and gratified de-
meanour of their inferiors . The mutual pleasure of
giving and receiving favours would fill the cup of
very opposite principles ; it is, however, obviously impossible to
animadvert upon it at present. 1 shall just allude to what is said
upon " pauper marriages," which the author intimates ought to
be placed under legal control. Independently of the immorality
which such interference would inevitably occasion (if it could then
be called immorality), the cruelty of such a scheme is monstrous. A
being more cheerless in health, more helpless in sickness, in a word,
more desolate, living or dying, than the unmarried labourer, can
hardly exist : concerning such, above all others, the declaration of
the Creator is emphatically true, " It is not good for man to be
alone." Seeing, then, the tyrannous propositions on the one hand,
and the disgusting expedients on the other, to which the modern
principle of population drives many of its adherents, strange is it
that any one human being can be brought to believe that it is the
system of nature. But the cruelty of all this interference on the
part of man is nothing compared with its presumptuous ignorance.
An insect on the narrow shore of time, mounted on a grain of sand,
calculating from the tide of life flowing towards it, a universal de-
luge ! and calling upon its fellow-insects to stem the restless waves!
its organs meantime infinitely too minute to perceive the eternal hills
by which it is bounded, or to hear the voice which proclaims " Hither-
to shalt thou go and no further" — the voice of Him who is the foim-
tain of that ocean of immortality, and who " measureth its waters
in the hollow of His hand !"
' That nothing short of this can secure the peace and happiness
of any community, is no new discovery. Isocrates has a beautiful
passage on the subject, the extreme appositeness of which, in refer-
ence to what I have been asserting throughout the preceding pages,
will, I think, clear me from the charge of pedantry in subjoining it :
Oi' re yacq 7reve'c7Te§oi rcuv TtoXirouv roGovro',) oiTisi'/p'j rov (p9ovc'i]/
rdis TiX^'iOo xs;tT7)/xe'voiS', cjarz h^j^oicos inri^ovro rcuv o'^xujv rx\ (xs-
yxkcuVf ouoTrsp tojm a'^erigaiv ccvrcuv' rtyovyivm rrrj c)t:-tva;v ivdxi-
(xovixv ccvrois suTTo^locv vTroc^x^iV oi r& rxs ov'Jioi.s 8%o)jrsf., ovy^
Movrss oCiay^vvrw o-vrols ihxt rrjv ra;v 'noKircuv qcTto^ixv sTrnfjivjov
rods ev^a/xtr. — (Isoc. Oratio Areop. pp. 290, '291. Cantab, 8vo.
1729.)
412 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [§ XV.
human happiness, agitate and heighten its pleasures,
even to the very brim. The various and too often
discordant elements of society would become purified
of their inherent evils by this salutary admixture.
Its several classes, weak in their division, and hostile
as separate from each other, would, as they were drawn
closer together in the bonds of mutual interest and
aifection, become indissoluble : not only, as the fabled
bundle of sticks, would they remain united and un-
broken, but each, like the rod of Aaron, would again
branch forth and blossom into all the charities and vir-
tues of domestic and social life. Then, indeed, the
different ranks of society, instead of so many steps of
a dungeon, descending down to lower and still lower
depths of misery and degradation, would, like Jacob's
ladder, seem reaching up to Heaven, and the Angels
of Mercy and Gratitude would be seen ascending and
descending thereon, for ever !
§XV.] AND THKIR REMEDIES. 413
POSTSCRIPT.
It has been suggested to me, that it would have been
well to have accompanied the foregoing tables respecting
Ireland with at least one or two of those referred to in
the Introduction, as establishing the principle of population
universally, in order to silence the objections which may
be advanced, founded on the supposed prevalence of
some local or peculiar habits in that country, affecting the
question. It is obviously too late for me to do this at
present; I will, however, so far avail myself of the sug-
gestion as to give a synopsis of one of them, and shall
purposely take that which relates to a country whose popu-
lation is thin and scattered, and represented, in all other
respects, as in a condition directly opposite to that of Ireland ;
one in which the ** preventive check" is supposed hardly
to exist at all, or, if it exist, is not to be sought for in the
more densely peopled northern states, where, as Dr. Frankhn
says, they "marry in the morning of life," but in the south-
ern, or slave-holding ones, where the population is the scan-
tiest ; there, indeed, we are told, moral restraint, unhap-
pily, is not unknown. But, above all, I select the instance
about to be given as that on which the '* geometric ratio"
of human increase professes to be solely founded ; I allude,
of course, to the United States. In this extract, then, of
one of my tables, the first column expresses the relative con-
densation of the population, by dividing it according to the
number of acres to every individual throughout ; the second,
the number of states and territories in each class ; the
third, a given number of females (100) between sixteen and
forty-five ; the fourth, the proportionate number of cliildren
under ten years of age to each of those hundreds. The
particulars of the States, and the numbers on which the
calculation is formed, will be given in the work referred to.
414
IRELAND ; ITS EVILS, &C.
[§ XV.
TABLE, exhibiting- the variation of Prolificness in the United States,
regulated by the Condensation of the Population throughout.
Acres to each
Inhabitant.
Number of
States and
Territories.
Females from
16 to 45.
Children under
lOjtoea. of those
100 Females.
Less than 10
10 to 20
20 to m
30 to 50
50 to 100
100 and upwards
1
3
3
5
4
11
100
1(X)
100
100
100
100
127
139
150
171
192
203
But to particularize the New England States, where the
inhabitants are the most stationary, and of uniform habits: —
States.
Inhabitants to
Females from
Children,— 10,
a square Mile.
16 to 45.
tbeach 1000.
Massachusetts . .
75
1000
1268
Connecticut . .
56
1000
1282
Rhode Island . .
48
1000
1314
New Hampshire .
22
1000
1384
Maine ....
7
1030
1621
In the statistics of America, as in those of Ireland, the
marriages and births are wanting: this omission, however,
instead of weakening the proof of the real principle of popu-
lation, has actually confirmed it, by leading to an equally
conclusive demonstration of its truth, calculated on totally
different principles. In the rest of the tables, however, the
more usual method is pursued, and not only with equal
success, but with this singular advantage to the argument ;
they will show, at the same time, the ignorance and error
which have prevailed relative to what is called the " preven-
tive check ;" taking away therefore, at once, the main sup-
port of the contrary system, and answering the sole objection,
as it is conceived, by which the one now developed can be
assailed.
FINIS.
London: Printed by W. Clowes, 14, Charinj-Cross.
Speedily will be published, in 3 lar^e vols. 8v«).
THE
LAW OF POPULATION;
A TREATISE, IN SIX BOOKS:
IN DISPROOF OF THE SUPERFECUNDITY OF HUMAN BEINGS; AND
DEVELOPING THE REAL PRINCIPLE ON WHICH THEIR
INCREASE IS UNIVERSALLY REGULATED.
BY M. T. SADLER.
That to the height of this great argument,
I may assert Eiernal 1'roviuknce,
And justify the ways of Gou to irian!
Also, by the same Author,
JURA INJURIJEQUE PAUPERUM;
OR, A DEFENCE OF THE PRINCIPLE OF
THE POOR LAWS OF ENGLAND;
wrrti
Suggestions for their Essential hnproi'ement .
Safe in the love of Heav'n, an ocean flows
Around our realm, a barrier from tiie foes;
•lis ours the sons of- sorrow to relieve,
Cheer the sad heart, nor let afHiclion grieve
By Jove the stranger and the po.T were s-nt
And wliat to these we give, to Jwve is lent.
>-'-
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